Layla Anwar: Ther are no Secret Prisons in Iraq - Part 2

Iraqi Blogger Layla Anwar. No, it's Asma Al Assad,
first lady of Syria - Cr: Frontpage Magazine

Ther are no Secret Prisons in Iraq - Part 2.

Layla Anwar - An Arab Woman Blues

One survivor testified hiding his face on al Jazeera he said : " they would torture one man in front of his brother, to extract information, or one father in front of his son and vice versa. We saw the most horrendous forms of torture..." The guy was too scared to give all the details.

But this is nothing - wait till you hear the LIVE testimonies on Al-Rafidain by some of the released detainees and families of the missing.

This is a rushed transcript so I will give you bullet points

- out of the 430 reported missing i.e secretly detained, only 47 were released.

-130 or so are still in Al- Muthana secret prison and the rest have been transferred to another prison near Baghdad's stadium Al-Ma'lab prison.

- all of those detained in the Nineveh province were picked from their homes during night raids, no charges have been pressed against them. You would undoubtedly agree that a "terrorist" or an "insurgent" would not be sitting or sleeping in his home with family.

- there were driven in the back of trucks "like animals" for a 13 hour ride. The minute they arrived to Baghdad's secret prison - one of Baghdad's secret prison, the torture they endured was so horrific that one said he wished for death any minute. One identifying himself by the name of Abu Ahmed, said that they were subjected to not only disgraceful appalling prison conditions but the amount of torture he underwent and witnessed was unprecedented. He spoke of daily rapes, and named the man who died under torture in January 2010 - His name was Riyadh.

- another caller confirmed that there is another secret prison in Tikrit where members of his family have disappeared. He tried getting information through the government authorities to no avail.

- another called and gave the FULL names of his torturers and their military grades as well their regiment division. The name of one torturer I recall is AbdelNuman - he is a member of Maliki's forces and also a member of the DAWA party , his aide is a Kurdish guy by the name of Kirwan. Again, more gory details of how this man was tortured by these two guys

- another gives more information - there are 3 secret prisons in Mosul in the following locations - two of which I remember. a) Al- Kindi b) and another one in the ex-palace of Saddam's Hussein and there is another one in Tel Afar.

- there are an additional 5 secret prisons in Baghdad. I will try to get the exact locations and publish them on my blog as well as other information like names...

- another caller gave also more names of his torturers and their grades. And one preferred method for this particular torturer in charge of this division, and who is also a member of Maliki's special forces was the use of a "hamburger grill" which he would heat up to the maximum and force the detainees to sit on.

- another detainee said he witnessed 4 men dying under torture over and above the one guy reported dead in January 2010

- pictures of the most grotesque signs of torture were shown. Impossible to describe without actually getting hold of the film.


I will update this post whenever I receive anything new. Yalla, Welcome to Freedom and Democracy of the new Iraq --american, iranian style.