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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"My personal opinion was that he may have been a jihadi a-hole, but the precedent of 'deporting' U.S. citizens to dangerous situations when there is no reason to do so was a bad one," the official quoted the memo as saying.
Like Benaouda, Meshal was arrested fleeing Somalia. A Kenyan police report of Meshal's arrest obtained by AP says he was carrying an assault rifle and had crossed into Kenyan with armed Arab men who were trying to avoid capture.
Meshal's parents insist he is innocent and called on the U.S. government to win his release.
"My son's only crime is that he's a Muslim, an American Muslim," his father, Mohamed Meshal, said from the family's two-story home on a cul-de-sac in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, where he lives with his wife, Fifi.
"Clearly the U.S. government interrogated him, and threatened him with torture according to the accounts that we've seen," said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law who has been assisting the family.
Rep. Rush Holt, a Democrat from New Jersey, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday to demand Meshal's immediate release. "Our government cannot allow an American citizen to continue to be held by the Ethiopian government in violation of international law and our own due process," he said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, the guardian of the Geneva Conventions that protect victims of war, is seeking access to the Ethiopian detainees, said a diplomat from a country whose citizens are being held. He insisted on speaking anonymously because he is working for their release.
U.S. officials, who agreed to discuss the detentions only if not quoted by name because of the information's sensitivity, said Ethiopia had allowed access to U.S. agencies, including the CIA and FBI, but the agencies played no role in arrests, transport or deportation.
One official said it would have been irresponsible to pass up an opportunity to learn more about terrorist operations.
Kolko, the FBI spokesman, also said the detainees were never in FBI or U.S. government custody.
"While in custody of the foreign government, the FBI was granted limited access to interview certain individuals of interest," he told AP. "We do not support or participate in any system that illegally detains foreign fighters or terror suspects, including women and children."
Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, declined to discuss details of any such interviews. He said, however: "To fight terror, CIA acts boldly and lawfully, alone and with partners, just as the American people expect us to."
One of the U.S. officials said the FBI has had access in Ethiopia to several dozen individuals — fewer than 100 — as part of its investigations.
The official said the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed hundreds are a major focus of the agents' work. Law enforcement officials have long believed the bombings were carried out by members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network who were later given safe haven in Somalia.
The official said FBI agents would not be witness or party to any questioning that involved abuse.
It wasn't clear how many people the CIA interviewed or whether the agency's officers were working jointly with the FBI.
The CIA began an aggressive program in 2002 to interrogate suspected terrorists at an unknown number of secret locations from Southeast Asia to Europe. Prisoners were frequently picked up in one country and transferred to a prison in another, where they were held incommunicado by a cooperative intelligence service. But President Bush announced in September that all the detainees had been moved to military custody at Guantanamo Bay.
One Western diplomat, who refused to be quoted by name for fear of hurting relations with the countries involved, would not rule out that additional suspects in Ethiopia could be sent to Guantanamo.
Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua insisted no laws were broken and said his government was not aware that anyone would be transferred from Somalia to Ethiopia.
Lawyers and human rights groups argue the covert transfers to Ethiopia violated international law.
"Each of these governments has played a shameful role in mistreating people fleeing a war zone," said Georgette Gagnon, deputy Africa director of Human Rights Watch. "Kenya has secretly expelled people, the Ethiopians have caused dozens to disappear, and U.S. security agents have routinely interrogated people held incommunicado."
© 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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