Condemned Saddam ex-VP claims torture in US custody

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Condemned Saddam ex-VP claims torture in US custody

February 19, 2007 12:02:00 pm

[JURIST] Former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan [Trial Watch profile; JURIST news archive], sentenced to death [JURIST report] in connection with crimes against humanity committed in the town of Dujail in 1982, has alleged in a sworn statement [DOC text, English translation] that US forces in Iraq mistreated him and subjected him to "methods of torture" for three weeks following his arrest in 2003 after he reportedly refused to reveal certain information. Ramadan's defense lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano [Wikipedia profile], recently released the statement, which is dated March 22, 2006 after reportedly receiving it from an unidentified US official in Baghdad by e-mail February 6.

In a statement e-mailed to JURIST Monday, Di Stefano said:

If this is the manner upon which my clients have been treated and indicative of how the US/UK Security Services conduct their interrogations then it is no wonder that there is so much opposition to the United States of America. This matter has been now reported to the UN Human Rights Commissioner but with the military might of the United States the reality is that not much any organization can do to curb these excesses. It is ironic that the civil case in the US District Court of DC against Saddam Hussein et al (including Taha Ramadan and Tariq Aziz) may now save Taha Ramadan's life primarily thanks to the Omar Judgement, will now be used against the United States of America in a new suit which I will file for the same allegations. The continued disrespect for international law by the US/UK will truly indeed make those countries potential targets for those who oppose these methods of interrogations and turn such episodes into motives for attack. Saddam Hussein, Barzan Al Tikriti, Awwad Al Bandar were totally against violence as a means to an end. I know because they said so. But it is becoming more and more difficult to make the Iraqi people understand that Saddam, Barzan and Awwad were against vendetta action. They sought an Iraq governed and run by Iraqi people but not by means of murder. I am grateful to those within the US military that have deemed appropriate in the spirit of full disclosure the delivery to me of documents that should have been in my possession in 2006. Awwad Al Bandar complained to me that he had been promised by the US not to be prosecuted if he would testify against Saddam Hussein. Barzan Al Tikriti had also told me he had been promised nulle proseque if he testified against Saddam Hussein. Tariq Aziz has stated that when interrogated by the US/UK the sole line of interrogation was the relationship that George Galloway MP had with Iraq. I am calling upon the Secretary of Defense in the US to now call for an open and public enquiry into the treatment of those detained since 2003 including releasing the interrogations transcripts of Saddam Hussein, Barzan Al Tikriti, Awwad Al Bandar to ensure open justice. It must be done forthwith."

The Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT) [official website; HRW backgrounder] originally sentenced Ramadan to life in prison in the Dujail trial, while Saddam Hussein and two others were sentenced to death [JURIST report] in November. The tribunal last week resentenced Ramadan to death by hanging, however, following a December 26 ruling by the IHT Appeals Chamber in its decision upholding Hussein's death sentence [JURIST report] that the life sentence for Ramadan was too lenient. UN human rights expert Phillip Alston [official profile] argued [JURIST report; press release] last week that Ramadan's trial was unfair and he should not be executed.

Di Stefano has said that he will ask US courts to prevent the US government from handing Ramadan over to Iraqi officials for his execution, relying on the case of suspected Iraqi terrorist Shawqi Omar [JURIST news archive]. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled [PDF text] earlier this month that Omar may argue his case before a US court [JURIST report]. Omar is seeking to block the US military from turning him over to Iraqi custody for trial in Iraqi courts. Bloomberg News has more.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.