A/HRC/13/42*
page 65
He was arrested in Iran in late 2001. He was held there for about three months before
being handed over to the authorities in Afghanistan who in turn handed him over to
the custody of the US. He was held in a prison in Kabul. During US custody,
officials cut his clothes with scissors, left him naked and took photos of him before
giving him Afghan clothes to wear. They then handcuffed his hands behind his back,
blindfolded him and started interrogating him. The apparently Egyptian interrogator,
accusing him of belonging to Al-Qaida, threatened him with death. He was put in an
underground cell measuring approximately two metres by three metres with very
small windows. He shared the cell with ten inmates. They had to sleep in shifts due
to lack of space and received food only once a day. He spent three months there
without ever leaving the cell. After three months, Walid al-Qadasi was transferred to
Bagram, where he was interrogated for one month. His head was shaved, he was
blindfolded, made to wear ear muffs and a mouth mask, handcuffed, shackled,
loaded on to a plane and flown out to Guantanamo, where he was held in solitary
confinement for one more month. In April 2004, after having been detained for two
years, he was transferred to Sana’a prison in Yemen.
In its response, the Government of the United States reiterated its earlier announcements
that no Government agency was allowed to engage in torture and that its actions complied
with the non-refoulement principle.248 Opinion No. 47/2005 of the Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention also concerns Mr. Al-Qadasi.249
(b) Two men seized in Georgia in early 2002 and sold to United States forces: Soufian
al-Huwari, an Algerian, transferred to Algerian custody from Guantanamo in November 2008;
and Zakaria al-Baidany, also known as Omar al-Rammah, a Yemeni, still held at Guantanamo.
According to Mr. al-Huwari, both were rendered to the “dark prison”, and were also held in other
detention facilities in Afghanistan: “The Americans didn’t capture me. The Mafia captured me.
They sold me to the Americans”. He added: “When I was captured, a car came around and
people inside were talking Russian and Georgian. I also heard a little Chechnyan. We were
delivered to another group who spoke perfect Russian. They sold us to the dogs. The Americans
came two days later with a briefcase full of money. They took us to a forest, then a private plane
to Kabul, Afghanistan”;250
(c) Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi national and British resident, was seized in the Gambia in
November 2002, and rendered to the “dark prison” at the beginning of December 2002. He was
kept shackled in complete isolation and darkness for two weeks. On or around 22 December
2002, he was transferred to Bagram, and then to Guantanamo on 7 February 2003. He was
248
See E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.1, paras. 1 and 527, and the response from the Government
(A/HRC/10/44/Add.4), para. 252.
249
250
A/HRC/4/40/Add.1.
Combatant Status Review Tribunal Set 21. Available from
www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/Set_21_1645-1688_Revised.pdf, pp. 15-23
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