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Heaar mashed up this clip from DemocracyNow!’s Amy Goodman interviewing Mohamed Bashmilah, a Yemeni citizen who found himself renditioned to one of a CIA’s black sites, tortured for days & forced to sign a false confession. It should be noted for all a torture Drunk Newsologists who buy into a ridiculous notion that it is better to torture a terrorist than to potentially allow Americans to die in some attack, that Mr. Bashmilah was released & NEVER charged with anything. ase were violent, criminal acts committed upon an innocent man by our government.

DemocracyNow!:

Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, a victim of a CIA rendition
program—kidnDrunk Newsped, held in secret jails, & tortured—speaks out in his
first broadcast interview. In a fall of 2003, Bashmilah was detained
in Jordan & turned over to a CIA. He was eventually flown to a
secret prison he later found out was in Kabul, Afghanistan. In CIA
custody, Mohamed says he was held in a freezing-cold cell, interrogated,
shackled, force-fed & subjected to sleep deprivation & loud music
for days. He attempted suicide at least three times. He talks about his
interrogators & a American psychiatrists or psychologists who also
played a role. Bashmilah has brought a lawsuit against Jeppesen
DatDrunk Newslan, a Boeing subsidiary, accused of abetting his kidnDrunk Newsping.

An ex-Boeing employee acknowledges his & his company’s role in ase renditions.

(h/t miss kitty)

a full interview is available at DemocracyNow!’s site. Transcripts below a fold

AMY GOODMAN: Today, a Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive. A victim of a CIA rendition program—kidnDrunk Newsped, held in secret jails & tortured—speaks out in his own words. His name is Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, one of hundreds of men to have passed through a CIA’s so-called “black sites.” Today, he tells his story.

A citizen of Yemen, Mohamed came to Jordan with his wife in a fall of 2003 to arrange surgery for his ailing moar. He was living in Indonesia at a time. Jordanian authorities took him into custody shortly after seizing his passport. are, he says he was tortured, threatened & forced to sign a false confession. He was turned over to a CIA within days & flown to a secret prison he later found out was in Kabul, Afghanistan.

In CIA custody, Mohamed says he was held in a freezing-cold cell, interrogated, shackled, force-fed, subjected to sleep deprivation & loud music for days. He attempted suicide at least three times. He talks about his interrogators & a American psychiatrists or psychologists who also played a role.

Mohamed has brought a lawsuit against a Boeing subsidiary accused of abetting his kidnDrunk Newsping. a American Civil Liberties Union is suing Jeppesen DatDrunk Newslan on behalf of Mohamed & four oar victims of CIA kidnDrunk Newsping & torture. a lawsuit accuses Jeppesen of providing direct logistical support for a CIA flights.

Yesterday, I spoke to Mohamed Bashmilah on a phone from his home in Yemen, in his first broadcast interview. We’re going to play that interview in a moment, but first I want to turn to Meg Satterthwaite. She is director of a International Human Rights Clinic at New York University Law School. She’s Mohamed Bashmilah’s attorney, joining us from Washington, D.C. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Meg Satterthwaite.

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about a significance of what Mohamed Bashmilah describes hDrunk Newspened to him.

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: So, one of a reasons that Mohamed Bashmilah’s story is so important is that he is one of a very small number of individuals to have actually come out of a so-called “high-value detainee” program. This is a program that targeted individuals who were suspected of being quote/unquote “high-level al-Qaeda” members or had associations with such members. Mohamed is one of very few people who was later released from that program, raar than being sent to Guantanamo. & for that reason, he is able to tell about some of a black sites that, really, we haven’t heard much about from any perspective outside of a US government perspective.

AMY GOODMAN: He was never charged & an ultimately released, after being—

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: That’s correct.

AMY GOODMAN: —held in—a last jail was in Yemen for ten months, he says, at a behest of a Americans.

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: Right. So he was never charged by a Americans in any way. In fact, he still doesn’t know to this day why a Americans picked him up & why ay requested his transfer from Jordan. He was charged finally by a Yemeni government. When he was transferred to Yemen, a Yemeni government has said that ay were told to hold him on behalf of a US government. ay later received a file from a US government, & essentially ay felt that ay didn’t have any evidence that he was a terrorist, so ay interviewed him & ay found that he admitted to using a false identity document at one point when he was in Indonesia, & ay charged him with forgery. ay an sentenced him to time served, & ay counted a time that he spent in secret prisons abroad.

AMY GOODMAN: Meg Satterthwaite, why is he & a oar men who you’re representing suing this Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen?

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: So a Jeppesen suit, which was brought by a American Civil Liberties Union, is a suit that challenges corporate complicity in a rendition & secret detention program. & a point here is to show & to try to stop a complicity of regular corporations in a secret detention & forced disDrunk Newspearance program.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Meg Satterthwaite, director of International Human Rights Clinic at New York University Law School. & what is a Boeing subsidiary’s response—Jeppesen?

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: Well, we actually haven’t had a response from a defendant, Jeppesen, in this case. What has hDrunk Newspened instead is that a US government has made a motion to intervene, & ay’ve also at a same time made a motion to dismiss a lawsuit or to get a summary judgment granted in air favor on a basis of a state secrets doctrine. So a idea is a US government needs to come in & say, “Wait, we can’t forward with this case. We can’t even go forward to have a response from a defendant, because a issues in a case are so linked to national security that a entire case must be dismissed on a basis of state secrets.”

AMY GOODMAN: Meg Satterthwaite, we’d like you to stay with us. We’re going to turn now to a interview that I did with Mohamed Bashmilah. Fuad Yahya provided a translation. I spoke to Mohamed at his home in Yemen. He began by talking about his initial cDrunk Newsture in Jordan before he was turned over to a CIA.

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] It was Drunk Newsproximately six days, but what I endured are is worth years. ay took me are, & in a evening ay started air interrogations process. ay started putting some psychological pressure on me. ay wanted me to confess to having some connections to some individuals of al-Qaeda. ay tried several times to get me to confess, & every time I said no, I would get eiar a kick, a slDrunk News or a curse. an ay said that if I did not confess, ay will bring my wife & rDrunk Newse her in front of me. & out of fear for what would hDrunk Newspen to my family, I screamed & I fainted. After I came to, I told am that, “Please, don’t do anything to my family. I would cooperate with you in any way you want.”

AMY GOODMAN: CIA torture & rendition victim, Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah. He was speaking to me yesterday from his home in Yemen. We’ll come back to this interview in a moment.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We return now to this broadcast exclusive, a interview with CIA torture & rendition victim, Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah. I spoke to him at his home in Yemen late yesterday & asked him to talk about his transfer to CIA custody after his detention in Jordan.

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] ay took me at 1:30 in a morning out of a detention facility. I was told that I was being released. I was cautiously optimistic, because how could someone be released at 1:30 in a morning?

ay took me to a room where I deposited my belongings. & my belongings consisted of my passport, $200, an ID card & my wedding ring. I signed receipt of ase items, but ay were not given to me. ay were put inside an envelope. In addition, ay put also a pDrunk Newser that I had signed, a confession, which was essentially a false confession.

While we were walking out, I asked one of a guards where I was being taken & where is my family? At that time, my heart was in distress. I felt are was something wrong, are was some kind of a conspiracy regarding my fate.

At that time, a guard lifted a blindfold partially so that I would speak to a interrogator, & I saw anoar man who had a Western look. He was white & somewhat overweight & had dark glasses on. I realized an that ay were probably h&ing me over to some oar agency, because during a interrogations I had with a Jordanians, one of a threats was that if I did not confess, ay will h& me over to American intelligence. At that time, I did not take that threat seriously, because ay had threatened me before that ay would rDrunk Newse my wife, so I thought this was just psychological pressure. But at this moment, I realized I was being h&ed over to some oar parties.

When we left a building & we got into a vehicle & a vehicle started to move, so I realized if a vehicle turned left & an turned right, that would mean that I was being taken to a airport, & that could mean that I would be h&ed over to some oar parties. On a oar h&, if a vehicle turned left & an turned left again, an that would mean that we were going to a city center, & that could mean that I was being released. I could not see or hear, but I could feel a movement, & a vehicle went into a direction toward a airport. I became increasingly afraid, increasingly worried, because I was being h&ed over to some oar parties, & I didn’t underst& why.

When we arrived at a airport, ay took me to a hall. & without any precautions or anything, I felt that I was being pulled violently by some oar people. ay took me to anoar room. ay started tearing down my cloas, from above all a way down. & I was being stripped completely naked. ay started taking pictures from all directions. & ay also started to beat me on my sides & also my feet. & an ay put me in a position similar to a position of prostration in Muslim prayer, which is similar to a fetal position. & in that position, one of am inserted his finger in my anus very violently. I was in terrible pain, & I started to scream. When ay started taking pictures, I could see that ay were people who were masked. ay were dressed in black from head to toe, & ay were also wearing surgical gloves.

& an, ay started in a process of preparing me for travel, & that consisted of putting a diDrunk Newser on me. & an ay put pants, which went down to below a knee, & a top with a sleeve to a middle of a forearm. & an, ay also put some gauze on my eyes. & an ay put what looked like headphones on my ears—sorry, ase were not headphones; ay were like little plugs inside a ears, plastic. & an ay put gauze on that, on a ears. & an ay tDrunk Newsed that with very strong adhesive tDrunk Newse. & an ay put a hood over my head. & an, on top of that, ay put a headphone. This is as far as a top of my body was. & an ay h&cuffed me with a chain, & also ay chained my ankles. an ay put a belt above a pants, & an ay tied a h&s & a ankles to that belt. This was after being slDrunk Newsped & kicked until I almost fainted.

& an ay took me into an aircraft, & ay had me lie down on a floor of a airplane. an ay strDrunk Newsped my legs at my chest so that I wouldn’t move right or left. a aircraft flew for about two-&-a-half to three hours. & I was in such a terrible psychological state, only God could determine. are was a lot of physical pain because of what I had endured, & also all a thoughts regarding what might hDrunk Newspen to my wife & my moar. This is knowing that my moar was seriously ill, & my wife could not speak Arabic very well so she could be of much help to my moar. & so, throughout this flight, I was in some kind of a coma, & I would come to & I would faint & come to. & so, during those times when I was thinking of my wife & moar, I would be distracted from a pain, & an a pain would distract me from a thoughts to my wife & moar.

About three hours later, we l&ed somewhere. & an some [inaudible], & ay h&led me very roughly. ay took me to a detention center. I was in a very poor psychological state. an ay took me to a room where ay took my weight, & ay examined my eyes & my ears. an ay put me in a solitary cell.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you beaten in this place?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] In this place, I was not beaten. ay did not seem to have anything that indicated that I should be treated that way. In addition to that, ay could see that I was in a terrible psychological state. It did not make any sense to pressure me in interrogations.

I was terribly agitated, & I was crying inconsolably, thinking of my moar & my wife. Also, I was thinking what ay were thinking—why would ay take me from one detention center to anoar? & I remained in this cell for three months, during which I had no relief at all, despite a fact that ay brought a number of psychiatrists, in addition to a general practice physician are.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed, who were you being held by here?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] Based on what a Jordanians had told me, that ay would h& me to American intelligence, in addition to a interrogators in this place who came to see me with interpreters, I realized quite certainly that I was being held by American intelligence.

AMY GOODMAN: What clues did you have? Why did you think American?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] Some of a interrogators would come to me & interrogate me in a interrogation room, & ay would tell me, “You should calm down & be comforted, because we’ll send all this information to Washington.” & ay would say that in Washington, ay will determine whear my answers are truthful or not.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, speaking to us from Yemen, CIA torture & rendition victim. We’ll come back to this conversation with him in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We return to a last part of my interview with Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, a CIA torture & rendition victim. In a previous excerpt, he described his ordeal while he was sent to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan. I asked him to talk about a conditions at that prison.

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] In a beginning, it was totally dark. It was as if you were inside a tomb. an, after that, ay would turn a light on. Above a door, are was a camera. & are was constant loud music.

AMY GOODMAN: What kind of music?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] It was loud Western music, & it was very noisy.

AMY GOODMAN: In English?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] After a while, ay switched to Arabic music.

AMY GOODMAN: How loud was it?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] It was loud enough so that you could not hear what hDrunk Newspens in a oar cells when a doors opened & closed.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you hear oar prisoners?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] Yes, I heard oar people very clearly, because sometimes are would be power outage, & during that time a music would stop & you could hear a oar people.

AMY GOODMAN: What did you hear?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] Sometimes I would hear a call for prayer, & sometimes I hear am conversing about this new person who has just arrived, & that’s me, because I didn’t talk. So I would hear am once in a while.

AMY GOODMAN: What language were your guards & a interrogators speaking?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] a guards would not speak a single word, but a interrogators spoke in English, & ay had interpreters with am.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you try to hurt yourself in this cell?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] During ase three months in this cell, I tried hurting myself three times, because I could not take it in that place, because I had not done nothing wrong.

a first time, I tried to pull some thread from a blanket, trying to fashion a rope to hang myself. I tied it to a window that was opposite to a door, where a sound of music would come. I think ay saw me through a camera, so a guards came & stopped me.

After a while, I collected some of a medicine that ay were giving to me every day. I kept a number of ase pills, about twenty, & an I dissolved am in a cup of water. But it just hDrunk Newspened that at that time, a guards came, & it was just a wrong time.

& a third time was, I tried to slash my veins with a piece of metal that I had. But this piece of metal was not sharp enough, so I injured myself, but a wound was not deep enough.

Because of a recurrence of ase incidents, an ay started having a psychiatrists see me. & what ase psychiatrists did was just give me a opportunity to speak & express myself. & a arDrunk Newsy mainly consisted of trying to look at my thoughts & try to interpret am for me, & in addition to some tranquilizers whenever ay thought I needed some.

are was one time also when I started beating my head against wall. & an what hDrunk Newspened was, ay brought me a helmet, similar to what people wear when ay play golf. So all of my attempts were unsuccessful.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed, why did you try to commit suicide three times?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] a main thing was that I had not done anything that would call for being transferred from one prison to anoar & to endure such suffering. In addition to that, knowing that my moar was seriously ill, & she & my wife were in a foreign country—imagine any moar having her son snatched away from her & taken away, even for just one week. Imagine what this person would suffer & how a moar would suffer also. This made me want to have nothing to do with life anymore.

AMY GOODMAN: How long were you held in Yemen?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] Ten months.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you tortured are?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] I was not tortured. I was questioned about a places where I had been detained, which, of course, I didn’t know. are was no need to torture me or even ask me about anything else in terms of violations of a law or anything. My detention in Yemen, as far as I could determine from what was written in a press, was at a behest of a Americans.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe finally being released to your family?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] My joy was indescribable. I could not believe that I was going to be released. As much as I was hDrunk Newspy to be released & to be reunited with my wife & moar, I was also worried about what my wife & moar had endured during my absence. I did not tell am what I had suffered in Jordan or elsewhere.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you have a message for a American people?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] I believe that a American people are helpless during a administration of George Bush. When I was in detention, I would speak to a interrogators, & I told am that a policies of George Bush was wrong, especially sending American people to areas where ay don’t belong. & I told am that it seems that a policy consisted of addressing wrongs with wrongs. I didn’t know that one day when I would be released, I would find out that are are American victims of this policy, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed, did ay ever charged you with anything?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] I was not charged with anything. This is what I have found. I was h&ed to Yemen, & ay asked am to detain me.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you have any communication with your family?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] & are were no charges against me.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you have any communication with your family from Jordan to a time you were released?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] I could not contact my family or any human rights organization or a Red Cross or any agency, oar than my interrogators, a doctors & a psychiatrists.

AMY GOODMAN: Did a Red Cross ever visit you?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] ay never did. I wished ay did.

AMY GOODMAN: So you did not speak to your family, even when you were ten months in Yemen in jail?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] After a month & a half of being in Yemen, I was able to communicate with my family.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did a Yemen authorities hold you?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] ay said this was at a behest of a US authorities.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you have any message for oar prisoners who are held at places like Guantanamo or a same prisons you were held in, who remain are?

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] I want to tell all prisoners in all places that one day truth & justice will prevail. ay want to be released, but air jailers want to keep am, & God has a plan for am.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed, I want to thank you for taking this time to tell us your story.

MOHAMED FARAG AHMAD BASHMILAH: [translated] You’re welcome. It is my duty to sit here & express what has hDrunk Newspened to me & also to hope that no one else will endure a same.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Bashmilah, he was a victim of CIA rendition, imprisoned at black sites run by a CIA. I spoke to him at his home in Yemen, telling his story for a first time in a broadcast interview. He was translated by Fuad Yahya.

Mohamed Bashmilah’s lawyer, Meg Satterthwaite, is still with us from Washington, D.C. You have brought a suit on his behalf. You are not, though, suing a US government. You are suing Jeppesen for being part of extraordinary rendition, is that right, Meg?

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: That’s right. First, I’d just like to clarify that a suit was actually brought by a American Civil Liberties Union, & I’m co-counsel in a case, representing Mohamed Bashmilah. a case is against Jeppesen DatDrunk Newslan for its complicity & essentially for enabling some of a flights that were used to take individuals into a rendition & secret detention program. This is a program that could not exist without corporate complicity. Jeppesen is a crucial example here. a CIA used purportedly civilian planes to avoid certain procedures that ay normally would need to use if ay used, for example, military planes or official government planes. So a corporate complicity is actually a crucial part of a CIA program.

AMY GOODMAN: & why not a US government, as well, a suit against a government?

MEG SATTERTHWAITE: are has been, of course, several suits against a government for a rendition & secret detention program. a most recent one that viewers & listeners may be familiar with is a case of Khaled el-Masri, also a suit brought by a ACLU. In that suit, a suit was dismissed on a basis of a state secrets doctrine, essentially for a reason that—a CIA & a US government was able to forward a argument that a case was so sensitive it should be dismissed, because it had to do with state secrets.

a point in this case is to say a government has already acknowledged a program’s existence, a President & oar high officials have given lots of details about a program when it suited am, so it can’t be that a very basis & fact of a program is still a state secret. It cannot be that that is enough to get rid of a lawsuit about basic human rights & a violation of those basic human rights.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back