CAGE demands full accountability for Ali Al-Marri's detention and torture in US
London - CAGE demands full accountability for the torture and imprisonment of Ali Saleh Alkohlah al-Marri who was afforded no due legal process from 2002 to 2009, and who was released after 13 years in prison to his family in Qatar a few days ago.
"For many years he was one of three held in the US as an enemy combatant and, like the enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay, was tortured", said Asim Qureshi Research Director of CAGE. "Techniques used against al-Marri included dryboarding, where his airways would have been stuffed with socks and his mouth taped, causing him to choke. According to the CIA torture report where al-Marri is also mentioned, the CIA were not given the green light to use this technique yet reports have suggested that the use of this technique led directly to the deaths of three men at Guantanamo in 2006. We demand the full disclosure of all such techniques, and for those responsible for using them or giving their go-ahead, to be brought to justice", Qureshi also said.
His homecoming included a reunion with his 14 year-old son Abdur-Rahman, whom he had last seen when he was nine months old.
"Finally after 13 years of unjust imprisonment, I am home with my family whom I have missed more than anyone can hope to imagine,” Al-Marri told CAGE. “I have missed so much of my children's lives, years I will never get back.” “For years I lived in a judicial black hole that I hope no one should have to endure. Right now I am just happy to be back in my homeland.”
Al-Marri, a Qatari national and US resident, arrived in the United States with his wife and five children on 10 September 2001, when he began his studies at Bradley University in Illinois. Three months later he was detained as a "material witness" and then held for charges of credit card fraud. Less than a month before his trial, the charges were dropped and he was declared an ‘enemy combatant’.
He was detained for 17 months with no access to a lawyer, in solitary confinement, without basic provisions such as toilet paper, mattress, pillow and proper clothing. He was often admonished for covering his head (which he did with a shirt) when he prayed. His lawyers maintained in court documents that lights and water in his cell were turned on and off and his environment was “deliberately manipulated to degrade him”. When his health deteriorated as a result of his detention, he was denied basic medical attention.
“Though we welcome the news of Al-Marri’s release, we demand full accountability for his detention-without-trial and torture in the United States,” says Qureshi.
CAGE has the following statements to make in wake of Al-Marri’s release:
“We stand with Al-Marri’s family in joyfully welcoming back to his homeland, but the circumstances around his detention and imprisonment show a cat-and-mouse game played by those who sought to keep him behind bars, without evidence or fair trial.” “Seven years ago the court ruled that Al-Marri be released from military detention and either freed or actually charged and tried in a civilian court. But in a rehearing, the court reversed its decision, voting to keep him as an enemy combatant in military detention.”
“His lawyer, Lawrence Lustberg, said Al-Marri agreed to a plea bargain in 2009 only because he wanted to go home.” After a full seven years of torture and imprisonment without charge, he was offered a “plea bargain” which he, given the circumstances quite naturally accepted, which offered him a chance for freedom after serving a 15 year sentence." “Given the torture that al-Marri was subjected to, and the fact that he has now been released, show that his plea bargain took place under duress and is inadmissible evidence.”
“The events of his detention show an absence of due process, a hallmark of the War on Terror, which alienates Muslims, fair minded people around the world and increases extremism around the world. ”
PRESS ENQUIRIES:
Contact: Mr Amandla Thomas-Johnson
Phone: +(44) 207 377 6700
Email: \press@cageuk.org
Web: cage.ngo
CAGE
27 Old Gloucester Street
London
WC1N 3XX
Download Files
Torture in America: FBI & DOD torture of Ali al-Marri on the Charleston Naval Brig - Report
Read More
After 13 years in detention in the US, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri returned home to his home country of Qatar. Despite having pled guilty to terrorism, al-Marri was greeted home with a hero’s welcome, with dignitaries at the highest level of government attending to him personally. As he settled back into a life of freedom, al-Marri came to know that the offices of Ali Soufan – one of his interrogators during the early years of detention and the man that Ali al-Marri accuses of being one of his torturers – were located in his city, Doha.
__
Despite his guilty plea, Ali al-Marri asserts that his extended conditions of confinement left him with little choice other than to take a plea, in order to have any prospect of returning home to his family. Considering the scaling down of the allegations by the Department of Justice, there is every reason to believe that al-Marri was the unfortunate victim of the excessive approach the US ‘justice system’ was taking to Muslims in a post 9/11 environment.
Since Ali al-Marri’s release in 2014, he has sought help in holding his torturers to account, and CAGE has been involved in helping to investigate this case further. By listening to Ali al-Marri’s story, conducting our own independent background investigations, and reviewing 35,000 pages of documentation, we were able to verify the identities and dates of those who were involved in various aspects of his torture.
Although no distinction should ever be made in terms of the jurisdiction in which torture has taken place, it is of note, that Ali al-Marri, Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla were tortured on US soil, not in a CIA black site or at Guantanamo Bay. In terms of those involved, from the Department of Defense, FBI and civilian contractors, this has implications on any role they might have played in abusing al-Marri.
Some will claim that certain individuals mentioned within these pages are prominent anti-torture advocates. While this may be true to some extent, at CAGE we believe that nothing sends a better message to those who carry out torture, or indeed intend to, than the assertion that: if you torture, you will be held to account.
Accountability may not take place in the courtroom, but it can and will still place in the court of public opinion. At the very least, Ali al-Marri deserves to speak his truth, and hold those who harmed him to account.
