Report: 'CIA holding cell' in Jordan used for torture  The US Central Intelligence Agency has reportedly used its ties with its Jordanian counterparts to detain and interrogate at least 12 terrorism suspects in Jordan.
Citing unnamed documents, former prisoners and human rights advocates, The Washington Post said the detention center located on the outskirts on Amman was mostly used as a covert transit point for CIA prisoners captured elsewhere.
Some were detained during stopovers at Amman International Airport, the report said.
After the holding center in Amman, the prisoners were usually sent to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (pictured above), or CIA prisons in other parts of the world, according to the paper.
The detainees included Marwan al-Jabour, a Palestinian who was transferred to Jordan last year from a CIA secret prison and was released several weeks later in the Gaza Strip, the report said.
The Post pointed out that Jordan's General Intelligence Department is possibly the CIA's most trusted partner in the Arab world.
"Bush administration officials have said they do not hand over terrorism suspects to countries that are likely to abuse them," Craig Whitlock writes for the Post. "For several years, however, the State Department has cited widespread allegations of torture by Jordan's security agencies in its annual report cards on human rights."
Excerpts from Post article:
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"I was kidnapped, not knowing anything of my fate, with continuous torture and interrogation for the whole of two years," Al-Haj Abdu Ali Sharqawi, a Guantanamo prisoner from Yemen, recounted in a written account of his experiences in Jordanian custody. "When I told them the truth, I was tortured and beaten."
Sharqawi was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in February 2002 in a joint Pakistani-U.S. operation. Although the Guantanamo Bay prison had just opened, the CIA flew him instead to Amman, where he was imprisoned for 19 months, according to his account and flight records. He was later taken to another CIA-run secret prison, his statement says, before he was finally moved to Guantanamo in February 2004.
Sharqawi said he was threatened with sexual abuse and electrocution while in Jordan. He also said he was hidden from officials of the International Committee for the Red Cross during their visits to inspect Jordanian prisons.
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FULL POST ARTICLE CAN BE READ AT THIS LINK
(with wire reports)
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