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
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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)
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"It was a nightmare from start to finish," Kamilya Mohammedi Tuweni, a 42-year-old mother of three who has a passport from the United Arab Emirates, told AP in her first comments after her release in Addis Ababa on March 24 from what she said was 2 1/2 months in detention without charge.
She is the only released prisoner who has spoken publicly. She was freed a month after being interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed by a U.S. agent, she said. Tuweni, an Arabic-Swahili translator, said she was arrested while on a business trip to Kenya and had never been to Somalia or had any links to that country.
She said she was arrested Jan. 10. Tuweni said she was beaten in Kenya, then forced to sleep on a stone floor while held in Somalia in a single room with 22 other women and children for 10 days before being flown to Ethiopia on a military plane.
Finally, she said, she was taken blindfolded from prison to a private villa in the Ethiopian capital. There, she said, she was interrogated with other women by a male U.S. intelligence agent. He assured her that she would not be harmed but urged her to cooperate, she said.
In a telephone conversation with AP, Tuweni said the man identified himself as a U.S. official, but not from the FBI. A CIA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday that the agency had no contact with Tuweni.
"We cried the whole time because we did not know what would happen. The whole thing was very scary," said Tuweni, who flew back to her family in Dubai a day after her release.
Tuweni's version of her transfer out of Kenya is corroborated by the manifest of the African Express Airways flight 5Y AXF. It shows she was taken to Mogadishu, Somalia, with 31 other people on an unscheduled flight chartered by the Kenyan government.
The family of a Swedish detainee, 17-year-old Safia Benaouda, said she was freed from Ethiopia on March 27 and arrived home the following day. Benaouda had traveled to Somalia with her fiance but fled to Kenya during the Ethiopian military intervention, her mother said.
"She is exhausted, her face is yellow and she's lost about 10 kilograms (22 pounds)," her mother, Helena Benaouda, a 47-year-old Muslim convert who heads the Swedish Muslim Council, wrote on a Web site she set up to help secure her daughter's release. "She was beaten with a stick when she demanded to go to the toilet."
The mother spoke briefly by telephone with AP, saying any information she had was being posted on the Web site. She declined to make her daughter available for an interview.
According to the Web site, an American specialist visited the location where Benaouda was being held and took DNA samples and fingerprints of detainees. It said the teenager was never charged or allowed access to lawyers. The teen was also concerned about a 7-month-old baby that was in detention with her, the Web site said.
The transfer from Kenya to Somalia, and eventually to Ethiopia, of a 24-year-old U.S. citizen, Amir Mohamed Meshal, raised disquiet among FBI officers and the State Department. He is the only American known to be among the detainees in Ethiopia.
U.S. diplomats on Feb. 27 formally protested to Kenyan authorities about Meshal's transfer and then spent three weeks trying to gain access to him in Ethiopia, said Tom Casey, deputy spokesman for the State Department.
He confirmed Meshal was still in Ethiopian custody pending a hearing on his status.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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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.
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