NAIROBI, Kenya, April 4, 2007
AP: Feds Working In Secret African Prisons
U.S. Agents Hunting Al Qaeda Have Been Interrogating Suspects At Notorious Prisons, According To Investigation
-
Forty-two-year-old mother of three, Kamilya Mohammedi Tuweni, left, sits with her brother Sabry Abdullah in her house in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, April 1, 2007. Kamilya said she was held incommunicado, without charges or due process for more than two and a half months in jails in Kenya, Somalia and finally Ethiopia. She was freed a month after being interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed by a U.S. agent, she said. (AP Photo/Nousha Saimi)
-
Fast Facts Ethiopia Learn about the people, economy and history.
Human rights groups, lawyers and several Western diplomats assert hundreds of prisoners, who include women and children, have been transferred secretly and illegally in recent months from Kenya and Somalia to Ethiopia, where they are kept without charge or access to lawyers and families.
The detainees include at least one U.S. citizen and some are from Canada, Sweden and France, according to a list compiled by a Kenyan Muslim rights group and flight manifests obtained by AP.
Some were swept up by Ethiopian troops that drove a radical Islamist government out of neighboring Somalia late last year. Others have been deported from Kenya, where many Somalis have fled the continuing violence in their homeland.
Ethiopia, which denies holding secret prisoners, is a country with a long history of human rights abuses. In recent years, it has also been a key U.S. ally in the fight against al Qaeda, which has been trying to sink roots among Muslims in the Horn of Africa.
U.S. government officials contacted by AP acknowledged questioning prisoners in Ethiopia. But they said American agents were following the law and were fully justified in their actions because they are investigating past attacks and current threats of terrorism.
The prisoners were never in American custody, said an FBI spokesman, Richard Kolko, who denied the agency would support or be party to illegal arrests. He said U.S. agents were allowed limited access by governments in the Horn of Africa to question prisoners as part of the FBI's counter-terrorism work.
Western security officials, who insisted on anonymity because the issue related to security matters, told AP that among those held were well-known suspects with strong links to al Qaeda.
But some U.S. allies have expressed consternation at the transfers to the prisons. One Western diplomat in Nairobi, who agreed to speak to AP only if not quoted to avoid angering U.S. officials, said he sees the United States as playing a guiding role in the operation.
John Sifton, a Human Rights Watch expert on counter-terrorism, went further. He said in an e-mail that the United States has acted as "ringleader" in what he labeled a "decentralized, outsourced Guantanamo."
Details of the arrests, transfers and interrogations slowly emerged as AP and human rights groups investigated the disappearances, diplomats tracked their missing citizens and the first detainees to be released told their stories.
One investigator from an international human rights group, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak to the media, said Ethiopia had secret jails at three locations: Addis Ababa, the capital; an Ethiopian air base 37 miles east of the capital; and the far eastern desert close to the Somali border.
More than 100 of the detainees were originally arrested in Kenya in January, after almost all of them fled Somalia because of the intervention by Ethiopian troops accompanied by U.S. special forces advisers, according to Kenyan police reports and U.S. military officials.
Those people were then deported in clandestine pre-dawn flights to Somalia, according to the Kenya Muslim Human Rights Forum and airline documents. At least 19 were women and 15 were children.
In Somalia, they were handed over to Ethiopian intelligence officers and secretly flown to Ethiopia, where they are now in detention, the New York-based Human Rights Watch says.
A further 200 people, also captured in Somalia, were mainly Ethiopian rebels who backed the Somali Islamist movement, according to one rights group and a Somali government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to jeopardize his job. Those prisoners also were taken to Ethiopia, human rights groups say.
Kenya continues to arrest hundreds of people for illegally crossing over from Somalia. But it is not clear if deportations continue.
The Pentagon announced last week that one Kenyan al Qaeda suspect who fled Somalia, Mohamed Abul Malik, was arrested and flown to the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
When contacted by AP, Ethiopian officials denied that they held secret prisoners or that any detainees were questioned by U.S. officials.
"No such kind of secret prisons exist in Ethiopia," said Bereket Simon, special adviser to Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. He declined to comment further.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
More From War On Terror
The secrets of tennis legend 
- 1
- 2
- next
See all 29 CommentsGod would say "Sure dude, do unto others. They've got it comming"
This story is ***. Nobody is blaming the US for abducting anyone. They are monitoring the prisons for wanted AQ terrorists.
Simply put, this is irresponsible journalism.
- Lower the Speed Limit across our nation 20 mph... It'll save lives, won't cost our emergency services as much, be better for our economy, auto industries & jobs, & also combat polution which is health & Global Warming problem.
Posted by TiredoftheBS at 11:14 PM : Apr 04, 2007
I agree mostly with your comments because two wrongs have never made a 'right'.
This administration (esp Di*ck "leather boy" Cheney) and many of it's supporters here push torture so much that it's become obvious that it has nothing to do with national security, but rather that they get some sort of demented sexual thrill out of it. Come on guys! Admit it! You don't care about terrorism! You're just turned on by the idea of sweaty, young (the younger the better...right), swarthy men chained to a table for you to beat, torture and use as you will. What is it? The screams? The blood? Gets you off right! Or maybe you're one of those who see's Cheney dressed in leather doing it to you? Make you hot sickos? It must because that's the only reason I can think of that you all love it so much. Because you're sick.
What we need is a better class of prisoner, people with better info to extract....how about Bush, Cheney and Gonzo? They've got good info they aren't telling people about. Let's render them for a bit, squeeze them a bit, see what kind of nasty greasy stinky stuff oozes out.
pwrslm, No good drilling the Gulf of Mexico for more oil before you stop driving around in 4lt motors cars. America could half it's use of oil by restricting all cars to 1.9lt diesel engines. The price and demand on oil would drop to record levels in weeks. Then we could sit back and laugh at the grovelling oil producers and oil barons. The Middle East would revert back to Camels and the likes of Haliburton forced to buy a KFC franchise.
Posted by drinuk at 07:46 AM : Apr 05, 2007
Tell the idiots on Capitol Hill that.
Meanwhile, Cuba begins oil exploration right off our shores, claiming wells that should ave been US, but tree huggers in Congress and Florida did thier thing.
Wanna save the world, stop terrorists and religious tyrany. The rest will come naturally.
You would have made a great SS member! I'm serious you are so fascist in your views and opinions the SS would have made you into a guard at one of their death camps. How does someone grow up in the most LIBERAL and compassionate place on planet earth and turn out this hate filled and Cold blooded. It doesn't matter to a fascist who is tortured or killed, they are all inferior and that's just the way things are? Right Sparky? You make my skin crawl.... Sieg Heil and Amen.
Posted by MCVet at 08:54 AM : Apr 05, 2007
What a farce. There is nothing facist about what I said. Your small mindedness is sticking out like a red herring.
You are obviously ignorant about what Islam truely is. Your superficial summary of that ignorance is aptly demonstrated every day on these CBS boards.
Allah's Apostle said: "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform that, then they save their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah." (Sahih Bukhari 1.24)
The only way we will ever be truely free from the manipulation of Islam is to become free from foreign oil.
That wont stop Islamists from fighting us infidels, but at least it will give us a fighting chance.
Posted by pwrslm at 06:57 AM : Apr 05, 2007
You would have made a great SS member! I'm serious you are so fascist in your views and opinions the SS would have made you into a guard at one of their death camps. How does someone grow up in the most LIBERAL and compassionate place on planet earth and turn out this hate filled and Cold blooded. It doesn't matter to a fascist who is tortured or killed, they are all inferior and that's just the way things are? Right Sparky? You make my skin crawl.... Sieg Heil and Amen.
The only way we will ever be truely free from the manipulation of Islam is to become free from foreign oil.
That wont stop Islamists from fighting us infidels, but at least it will give us a fighting chance.
Yep - bush feds WOULD be there!
U.S. military intervention was precipitated by the need to protect four major U.S. oil companies that were occupying two-thirds of Somalia%u2019s land surface %u2013 Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Philips Petroleum. The presence of these oil companies %u2013 all of which were connected to Bush, Sr. %u2013 was in connection with the discovery by the Texas-based Hunt Oil Corporation of 1 billion barrels of oil reserves in Yemen south of Saudi Arabia. The oil reserves were part of a %u201Cgreat underground rift%u201D that stretched to northern Somalia. Aside from its proximity to the oil, Somalia is a key strategic asset to oil tanker routes through both the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.
In early 2002, the oil lobbyists urged Congress to declare the Gulf of Guinea located off Western Africa as %u201Can area of vital interests to the United States.%u201D Walter Kansteiner, Bush%u2019s assistant secretary of state of Africa, had earlier declared that %u201CAfrican oil is of national strategic interest to us, and it will increase and become more important as we go forward
Forget the security. With the murder rate in America, an attack on it might just save lives. If you are busy fighting a real enemy at home, it might just take your mind off of killing each other. Maybe you should fight them here instead of abroad.
The Iraqis have only killed around 3,600 Americans. In Texas where there is no war, America lost 5,000 killing each other in the same time span.
Far better to let them stew in their squalor until they themselves decide upon a more fruitful and rewarding lifestyle rather than the hate they have for the life we have created through hardwork and endevour. Protect the Nation by all means but do not decend to their depths in doing so. Those already living amongst us who show any inclination to cause us harm should be expelled back to the squalor.
- 1
- 2
- next
See all 29 Comments