[Rodeo]

November 15, 2005

Former detainees accuse troops of torture

By Lolita C. Baldor
Associated Press

Two Iraqi businessmen, who were imprisoned by U.S. forces in Iraq, alleged that American soldiers threw them into a cage of lions in a Baghdad palace as part of a terrifying torture ritual during 2003.

“They took me behind the cage, they were screaming at me, scaring me and beating me a lot,” Thahe Mohammed Sabbar told the Associated Press in an interview Monday. “One of the soldiers would open the door, and two soldiers would push me in. The lions came running toward me and they pulled me out and shut the door. I completely lost consciousness.”

Sitting in a Washington hotel room and speaking through an interpreter, Sabbar described the scene, motioning with his hands to show how he was pushed into the cage, then pulled back out just as the lions advanced.

Army spokesman Paul Boyce said Monday he has never heard of lions being used in any detainee operations and it has never come up in any of the more than 400 investigations into detainee abuse allegations conducted by the military over the past three years.

“We take every allegation of detainee abuse seriously,” said Boyce. “But it does seem unusual that this is now coming out for the very first time after three years of investigations.”

Sabbar, 37, and Sherzad Kamal Khalid, 35, are in the United States this week to talk about the lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First have filed on their behalf against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other military officials.

The suit, filed in March and transferred to federal court in Washington, details sexual abuse, mock executions, water and food deprivation, electric shock and other torture used on eight detainees including Sabbar and Khalid. It does not mention the lion cage allegation.

Khalid said they came to the U.S. to tell the American people “that what happened to us was wrong and the people who are responsible should be held accountable.” He said they named Rumsfeld in the lawsuit because “he is the highest person in the Army.”

Dressed in suits, the two men talked solemnly about the hot July day in 2003 when they were arrested by American troops with guns and armored vehicles. Their voices rose, and their words tumbled out more quickly, as they described being covered with plastic hoods and repeatedly struck by soldiers using the butts of their weapons.

“I was very scared,” said Khalid. “I felt I was going to suffocate. Every time I screamed and pleaded with them, they would hit me.”

They both described standing in front of a lions’ cage, and said they could hear other prisoners screaming as the metal cage door creaked opened and slammed closed.

“They threatened that if I did not confess they would put me in the cage,” said Khalid, adding that the soldiers kept asking him where Saddam was. “I laughed; I thought they were kidding me. They asked where are the weapons of mass destruction. I was very surprised, and I thought it was weird.”

When he laughed, he said, he was beaten more. He said they pushed him into the cage three times, pulling him out as the lions moved toward him.

Both men said they suffer continuing physical and psychological trauma, such as pain, ulcers, nightmares and insomnia, lasting effects of the abuse. Khalid said he was even afraid to be in America now, worried that he could be detained again.

Sabbar was held by U.S. forces about six months, Khalid for about two months. Both spent time in various detention centers around Baghdad and according to their lawsuit, they were both at times under the control of soldiers commanded by Col. Thomas Pappas.

Pappas, who was named in the lawsuit, was commander of the Military Intelligence Brigade assigned to Abu Ghraib prison, and he was held partly responsible for the detainee abuse committed by some soldiers under his command. He was reprimanded, fined and relieved of command.

Khalid and Sabbar’s visit comes as Congress and the Defense Department continue to focus on the detainee abuse scandals. Lawmakers have pushed to ban torture, while the Bush administration has argued to exempt the CIA from such limits. Meanwhile, the Pentagon last week issued a broad new directive mandating that detainees be treated humanely and banning the use of dogs to intimidate suspects.

Defense officials have conducted about 406 criminal investigations into allegations of detainee abuse, including the well-documented photos of torture at Abu Ghraib. To date, commanders have charged 73 soldiers at courts-martial, issued nonjudicial punishments to 77 soldiers and taken 67 other adverse administrative actions. About two-thirds of the criminal investigations are complete, and nearly three-quarters of those found criminal misconduct by soldiers.

Army officials questioned the validity of the accusations about the lions, saying that some reports suggest that at least several of the lions were removed from the presidential compound in Baghdad before July.

Saddam’s eldest son, Odai, who reportedly tortured and murdered at will, kept lions in his compound at the presidential palace, which was taken over by U.S. troops during the war. He was killed in a gun battle with U.S. soldiers in July 2003.