A/HRC/13/42*
page 79
him with other detainees, and took him to Bagram, where he was heavily tortured and
sexually abused by American soldiers. He was flown to Guantanamo in August 2002,
and released in December 2007.303
• Moazzam Begg, a British citizen, moved to Kabul, with his wife and three children, to
become a teacher and a charity worker in 2001. After leaving Afghanistan in the wake
of the United States-led invasion, on 31 January 2002, he was abducted from a house in
Islamabad, where he was living with his family, and taken to a place in Islamabad (not
an official detention facility), where those who held him were not uniformed officers
and there were people held in isolation. Held for three weeks, he was moved to a
different venue for interviews with American and British intelligence officers, but his
wife did not know where he had been taken, and he was denied access to a lawyer or
consular services. He was then taken to a military airport near Islamabad and handed
over to American officers. He was held in Afghanistan and Guantanamo for three years,
and was released in January 2005.304
6. Ethiopia
154. The Government of Ethiopia served as the detaining authority for foreign nationals of
interest to United States and possibly other foreign intelligence officers between
30 December 2006 and February 2007.305 On 2 May 2007, a number of special procedures
addressed the Government of Ethiopia, adding the following details:
In December 2006, the conflict between the militias of the Council of Somali Islamic
Courts and the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, supported by armed forces of
Ethiopia, caused a large flow of refugees seeking to cross the border from Somalia into
Kenya. On 2 January 2007, Kenyan authorities announced the closure of the border for
security reasons. Since then, it is reported that the Kenyan security forces have been
patrolling the border and have arrested a number of those seeking to cross it. Kenya has
deported at least 84 of those arrested back to Somalia, from where they were taken to
Ethiopia.306
155. The experts interviewed two of those captured between December 2006 and
February 2007: Bashir Ahmed Makhtal (mentioned in the Special Rapporteur’s communication)
303
Interview with Omar Deghayes (annex II, case 8).
304
Interview with Moazzam Begg (annex II, case 6).
305
For allegations of interviews conducted by Federal Bureau of Investigation officers, see for
example the case of Meshal vs Higgenbotham, available from www.aclu.org/nationalsecurity/meshal-v-higgenbotham-complaint. See also Human Rights Watch, “Why am I still
here?: the 2007 Horn of Africa renditions and the fate of those still missing”, 22 September
2008, available from www.hrw.org/en Reports 2008/09/30/whay-am-i-still-here-O.
306
A/HRC/7/3/Add.1, para. 71.
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