'Outsourced Guantanamo'–FBI & CIA Interrogating Detainees in Secret
Ethiopian Jails, U.S. Citizen Among Those Held
Watch this Video Link below:
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/4/5/outsourced_guantanamo_fbi_cia_interroga
ting_detainees
The CIA and FBI agents have been interrogating hundreds of detainees at
secret prisons in Ethiopia. Many of the prisoners were recently transferred
there secretly and illegally from Kenya and Somalia. They are being held
without charge or access to counsel. One of those held is 24 year-old U.S.
citizen, Amir Mohamed Meshal. We speak with an attorney working on Meshal’s
case, Human Rights Watch and a reporter in Nairobi who covered the story.
[includes rush transcript]
The Associated Press *
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6531179,00.html> reports*
the CIA and FBI agents have been interrogating hundreds of detainees at
secret prisons in Ethiopia. Many of the prisoners were recently transferred
there secretly and illegally from Kenya and Somalia. They are being held
without charge or access to lawyers or their families.
At least one of the prisoners held in Ethiopia is an American citizen. 24
year-old Amir Mohamed Meshal was detained in Kenya, then transferred to
Somalia, then to Ethiopia. On Monday, Congressember Rush Holt of New Jersey
called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to demand his release.
Meshal’s parents live in Tinton Falls, New Jersey.
We are joined by three guests:
* Anthony Mitchell, reporter for the Associated Press. He joins us on
the line from Nairobi, Kenya.
* John Sifton, researcher at <
http://www.hrw.org> Human Rights Watch.
Read HRW * letter <
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/03/30/kenya15622.htm> *
to Kenyan government.
* Jonathan Hafetz, lawyer at the <
http://www.brennancenter.org>
Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. He is
assisting the family of Amir Mohamed Meshal, the US citizen detained in
Ethiopia.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZALEZ: The Associated Press has revealed CIA and FBI agents have
been interrogating hundreds of detainees at secret prisons in Ethiopia. Many
of the prisoners were recently transferred there secretly and illegally from
Kenya and Somalia. They’re being held without charge or access to lawyers or
their families.
At least one of the prisoners held in Ethiopia is an American citizen.
24-year-old Amir Mohamed Meshal was detained in Kenya, then transferred to
Somalia, then to Ethiopia. On Monday, Congressmember Rush Holt of New Jersey
called on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to demand his release.
Meshal’s parents live in Tinton Falls, New Jersey.
AMY GOODMAN: Anthony Mitchell is a reporter who broke the story. He joins us
on the phone from Nairobi, Kenya, a correspondent for Associated Press. With
us here in our firehouse studio, two guests: Jonathan Hafetz is a lawyer at
the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law,
assisting the family of Amir Mohamed Meshal, the US citizen detained in
Ethiopia right now; and John Sifton is a researcher at Human Rights Watch.
We called the FBI, we called the State Department to invite them on the
show; they declined our request.
Anthony Mitchell, you broke the story. Lay it out for us.
ANTHONY MITCHELL: This is a story that dates back to the beginning of
January in the collapse of the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia. There had
been a conflict between the Ethiopian and Somali transitional governments
against the Islamic Courts. The Islamic Courts movement collapsed, and at
that time hundreds of people, thousands, fled Somalia, many of them to
Kenya, and a large number were detained crossing the border. After they were
detained a number of weeks, they had been transferred on flights back to
Somalia and onto Ethiopia, where they are now in detention.
AMY GOODMAN: Who is responsible for this detention?
ANTHONY MITCHELL: Well, at the moment, Ethiopia has a number in its
detention, according to human rights groups that we have spoken to. Many of
them were originally detained in Kenya and were then transferred to Somalia.
We have seen flight manifests of those detained and then transferred to
Somalia. From Somalia, they were then taken to Ethiopia, according to a
number of officials and human rights groups we have spoken to.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us the story of Kamilya Mohammedi Tuweni?
ANTHONY MITCHELL: Sorry, I didn’t catch that.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us the story of Kamilya Mohammedi Tuweni, the
42-year-old mother of three who had a passport from the United Arab
Emirates? What happened to her?
ANTHONY MITCHELL: She was an interesting case. She says that she was
arrested in Kenya in a coastal town of Malindi on the 10th of January. She
says she was here in Kenya on business, had never been to Somalia and was
not connected to anything that was going on in Somalia. She says she was
then taken from the coast to Nairobi, where she was questioned by Kenyan
officials. She was then transferred on a flight to Somalia on the 27th of
January and held in Somalia for about ten days, before being transferred on
to Ethiopia. Whilst in Ethiopia, she was questioned by US agents. And about
a month after she had been questioned, she was then released without charge
and is now back in the United Arab Emirates.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Could you tell us the roles of both the Kenyan government and
the US government in all of this? How do the Kenyan officials justify
sending people back into Somalia, knowing the situation there and the
continuing conflict there? And what is precisely the role of some of these
US officials? We know that there are obviously some US soldiers in Somalia.
There were a couple recently killed in supposedly a traffic accident there,
while they were in there. But what’s the role of the FBI and US Army troops,
as far as you know?
ANTHONY MITCHELL: The Kenyan government have been clear, from day one, that
these transfers are wholly legal. They argue that under Kenyan law they can
turn people to the countries from where they have come. So if people have
crossed over from Somalia, then Kenya can return these people back to
Somalia. The issue of Somalia being a dangerous place and its implications
and whether that makes these transfers illegal is more a question for
lawyers, I think, to flesh out. In terms of the role of the FBI, they say
that they were invited in by the Ethiopian authorities to question suspects.
And the FBI’s interest was primarily the 1998 bombings of its American
embassies based in Kenya and Tanzania.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to John Sifton, before we turn to find out more
about this young New Jersey man who’s being held in Ethiopia. John, you’re
with Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch has written a letter to the
Kenyan Director of Political Affairs Thomas Amolo. What do you understand
about what’s happening here? Are we seeing an outsourced Guantanamo in
Ethiopia?
JOHN SIFTON: Well, what we see here is a bunch of countries acting together
jointly to interrogate, detain and basically screen a whole bunch of people
who were captured along the border and inside of Kenya and even inside of
Somalia. It’s not very clear what the power dynamic is, but it is clear the
countries are acting together. We’ve said that the United States and
Ethiopia are some of the more responsible countries here, but Kenya and the
Somali transitional government also are playing a role. It’s essentially a
joint operation.
And it’s a decentralized form of detention that doesn’t exist inside the
rule of law. It’s basically a system which no courts have oversight over.
The countries are acting together, moving people across the borders back and
forth, screening them. And, you know, war zones are complicated places. You
have people who are fleeing, ordinary innocent people. You have criminal
suspects who were involved in the embassy bombings. You have people who were
fighting with the Islamic Courts Union. And you just have ordinary people
who get caught up. And so, it’s a very complex situation, which is why you
need a legal system, to sort out who’s who on the battlefield. And that’s
what we don’t have here.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what’s been the response of the Kenyan government to your
letter to them?
JOHN SIFTON: Well, the Kenyan government is still trying to play this
diplomatically and explain that, yes, people were detained, but it was
according to the rule of law. But the facts of the matter are they moved at
least eighty-five people to Somalia, and Somalian authorities appear to have
handed them over to Ethiopian authorities, some of them who ended up in
Ethiopia. Others were released.
It bears remarking that the United Kingdom was able to secure the release of
four citizens of their country who are now back in London. Sweden also was
able to do that, and the United Arab Emirates. The United States, by
contrast, and several other countries have been unable to get their own
citizens out of custody, or so they say. We find it extraordinarily
difficult to believe that countries like the United States are not able to
put diplomatic pressures on countries like Kenya and Somalia to get their
own citizens released.
AMY GOODMAN: So let’s talk about Amir Mohamed Meshal. Jonathan Hafetz,
you’re with the Brennan Center. Who is this young man?
JONATHAN HAFETZ: Well, he’s a young man, a 24-year-old born and bred
American citizen from New Jersey, who has been swept up in these goings on
over there and is being held in secret incommunicado detention in Ethiopia
and is being denied basic due process rights. The FBI claims they have no —
publicly claims they have no intent to prosecute him. And either through
their acts of omission or through deliberate acts, the United States has
left him to rot — an American citizen — rot in an Ethiopian jail, where he
can be faced with torture.
JUAN GONZALEZ: If this has all happened in secret, how did you first learn
of it and get involved with the case?
JONATHAN HAFETZ: Well, we heard about the case. The case was made public
through newspaper accounts. There were stories about the renditions, and
then it was learned that there were two American citizens, one of whom, a
man named Daniel Maldonado, was brought back to Houston and has been
charged, and then Amir Meshal, who is in Ethiopia. We heard about the case,
and through discussions with groups, including Human Rights Watch, we’ve
been — and the family, we’ve been providing assistance to the Meshal family.
JUAN GONZALEZ: What was Maldonado charged with?
JONATHAN HAFETZ: Maldonado was charged with attending an al-Qaeda training
camp. He has a lawyer, and he has due process. Amir Meshal, on the other
hand, who the FBI says they have no intent to bring charges against, is
rotting in an Ethiopian jail. This is the crazy product of the lawless
system that we’re seeing on display in Ethiopia and Kenya right now.
AMY GOODMAN: Has the FBI met with the Tinton Falls parents, with Meshal’s
parents?
JONATHAN HAFETZ: The FBI met with them briefly on February 6. They came to
Mr. Meshal’s, the father’s, home in New Jersey — Mr. Meshal, also an
American citizen; his family, American citizens — and they told him his son
was being held in Kenya, but they were going to arrange a phone call for him
to speak with his son. And then the next day the agent showed up and said
that was impossible, and they couldn’t arrange a phone call.
Meanwhile, the Department of State at that time contacted Mr. Meshal in New
Jersey, said they were trying to bring the son home and Mr. Meshal should
make arrangements to send a ticket for this to happen. He did so, but two
days later the State Department said, "He’s gone. He’s in Somalia. There’s
nothing we can do about it." And they just have not — the State Department
has not made this case a high priority, it is evident.
AMY GOODMAN: In Anthony Mitchell’s piece, the AP reporter, Anthony, you
write, "U.S. diplomats on Feb. 27 formally protested to Kenyan authorities
about Meshal’s transfer […] then spent three weeks trying to gain access to
him in Ethiopia, [according to] Tom Casey, […] the State Department. He
confirmed Meshal was still in Ethiopian custody pending a hearing on his
status. An FBI memo read to AP by a U.S. official in Washington, who
insisted on anonymity, quoted an agent who interrogated Meshal as saying the
agent was 'disgusted' by Meshal’s deportation to Somalia by Kenya. The
unidentified agent said he was told by U.S. consular staff that the
deportation was illegal." He said — and then he went on from there. Can you
talk further about this, Anthony Mitchell in Kenya, about what you
understand what happened to Amir Mohamed Meshal?
ANTHONY MITCHELL: Well, our understanding is pretty much as you laid it out
there, is that this is a young man who was picked up in Kenya. He was —
according to police reports we have seen, he was held, detained, while he
was with a group of men sleeping under a tree. The men were, according to
Kenyan police reports, were armed. They had AK-47 assault rifles. He was
detained. He was brought down to Nairobi, where we understand he was
questioned by the FBI, then, about ten days later, was transferred up to
Somalia and — along with other groups — and on to Ethiopia. He was
transferred, according to the flight manifests that we’ve seen, he was
transferred on the 10th of February to Somalia and onwards to Ethiopia,
where US consular officials have visited him several times, we understand.
AMY GOODMAN: John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, what does — I mean, there
are many surprising things about this story, but what does the FBI — we
think of it as collecting domestic intelligence, like our last story on
American citizens in the United States. What’s it doing with the CIA? And
then, we’ll get to what is the CIA and FBI doing, involved in these
"extraordinary renditions."
JOHN SIFTON: Well, the CIA’s role is very interesting, in that it doesn’t
appear. There was a time not long ago when the United States regularly
detained people and used CIA secret prisons to hold them and detain them and
interrogate them. The CIA, however, has had a terrible track record in
Somalia. They funded a bunch of warlords to try to take over Mogadishu; they
failed. Islamic Courts Union took their place. As a result, there is an
internal struggle in East Africa among US agencies, and the CIA has been
largely pushed to the side. The lead agencies now are the military and the
FBI.
And it’s a very interesting new relationship, because it basically — you’ve
got to understand that two years ago and five years ago in Pakistan, the way
this operation would have went, most of the people detained would have been
sent to Guantanamo or to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, held as combatants
and interrogated by military intelligence. But now, we see the Bush
administration has shifted gears, and now they have the FBI interrogating
people, but basically outsourcing the detention and some of the
interrogation, as well, to local forces, like the Ethiopians, the Kenyans.
So that’s why we call it a sort of outsourced Guantanamo. It’s not like
Guantanamo; we’re not holding combatants in Cuba or at Bagram. But it is
this sort of outsourced decentralized system.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And what is the situation in terms of the legal system and
the prison conditions, as far as you know, in Ethiopia?
JOHN SIFTON: Well, Ethiopia has an absolutely horrendous record. It’s often
overlooked in favor of Egypt and Morocco and countries like that. But
Ethiopia has a terrible record with torture, that runs even to the present
day. And so, we have major concerns. Thankfully, this woman who was in Dubai
has not reported any mistreatment, but that might be due to the fact that
she was innocent and she’s an older woman. But the young man, especially the
Eritreans and Ethiopian citizens who are suspected of fighting against
Ethiopia, they are at high risk of torture and even execution. So we’re very
concerned about them. But all of the detainees, it’s very serious.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And your client in this case, what was he doing in Somalia,
to your knowledge, that he ended up then across the border in Kenya?
JONATHAN HAFETZ: Well, we haven’t spoken to him. We’ve not been allowed to
speak to him, but I understand that he was there, from the reports, to study
Islam. And, you know, we’ve seen there no evidence to the contrary. And
there was a reference a moment ago to a rifle, but I want to make clear that
there’s been no evidence, and the United States has said that, time and
again, about people — for example, Yaser Hamdi, a US citizen, said was in
Afghanistan with a rifle — but when it came time for the United States to
show the evidence, Hamdi was released. Very more often than not, the
government has not had evidence. And there’s been no evidence produced to
show that anything, except that Amir Meshal is an innocent man.
AMY GOODMAN: John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, we called the FBI. They
declined to come on. But Democracy Now! spoke with Richard Kolko, a
spokesperson for the FBI. He said the FBI did question Meshal. He reiterated
the point the US never had custody of him. He also said the FBI was
questioning people there to protect America from terrorism. He wouldn’t say
why they questioned Meshal. He reiterated the point Meshal was arrested by a
foreign sovereign state. And he said if you get arrested in Tijuana with
marijuana and you’re a US citizen, you don’t get a free pass; it doesn’t
work that way.
JOHN SIFTON: Well, certainly, there is some grains of truth to that. We have
to understand it’s not just a purely legalistic system. This is a power
dynamic, a war zone, in which the United States has been one of the major
players, helping Ethiopia invade Somalia and restore the transitional
government there, and in Kenya, where they have worked hand-in-glove with
Kenyan intelligence services to interrogate suspects. It is true that the
FBI takes a back seat in many countries when local authorities are in the
front seat doing the interrogations, but with the power dynamic in East
Africa, we find responses like that to be somewhat disingenuous. The fact of
the matter is the United States is very much in a power player role, as a
military that has supplied massive amounts of military aid to both Kenya and
Ethiopia. And we just find it very difficult to believe that they are
basically just sitting on the side, powerless to do anything for their own
citizens.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, not only that, but it seems to me that the analogy is
not quite the same, because at least if somebody is arrested with drugs in
Tijuana, they’re charged with drug trafficking. Here, you have a situation
where this particular individual and several of the others have not been
charged with anything, as far as we know, right?
JOHN SIFTON: That’s absolutely right. I mean, basically, the system is
existing outside of the rule of law. I mean, you’re in pretty good shape if
you’re in Kenya, but it’s still not perfect. When you get sent to Ethiopia
or Somalia, which continues to be an active war zone, there are no courts
operating which are going to help you. It’s not as though lawyers can go in
and ask to see the Eritreans, the Ethiopians, the Kenyans or the Americans.
It just doesn’t work that way.
AMY GOODMAN: Jonathan Hafetz, what is the State Department doing now to
help? First of all, Human Rights Watch has sent a letter to Condoleezza
Rice. Congressmember Rush Holt of New Jersey has sent a letter. What’s
happening?
JONATHAN HAFETZ: Yeah, and Congressman Rush Holt has taken a very active and
strong role, which is greatly appreciated. The State Department has really,
as I said, not made this a priority. They have now visited Mr. Meshal a few
times. It took them a month to get access. Meanwhile, he was being
interrogated repeatedly by FBI agents. I find the State Department’s failure
to see him more quickly very troubling. And the State Department has just
not made this a priority to bring this American citizen home and to bring
him out of this lawless void.
And there’s also — I do want to point out that the story by Anthony Mitchell
contains a statement from an individual, an unnamed individual — I believe
it’s in the State Department, but somewhere in the United States government
— saying the United States is playing a "guiding role" in this. And, you
know, we believe the United States is involved in this and could bring this
American citizen home if it made it a priority to do so.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Anthony Mitchell, you talk about the one prisoner
who’s been released, who is describing her situation, the translator,
Tuweni, who said she was arrested on a business trip, that she was
blindfolded from a prison where she had been beaten, sent to a private villa
in the Ethiopian capital, said she was interrogated with other women by a
male US intelligence agent. He assured her she would not be harmed, but
urged her to cooperate.
And then you go on to tell the story of a 17-year-old Swedish detainee named
Safia Benaouda, who said she was freed from Ethiopia, had traveled to
Somalia with her fiancé. Her mother talked to you and said, again, according
to website, that an American specialist visited the location where Benaouda
was being held and took DNA samples and fingerprints from the detainees?
Anthony?
ANTHONY MITCHELL: Sorry, I [inaudible] —
AMY GOODMAN: I was just asking you about the US involvement, from the case
of the 17-year-old Swedish detainee, who has just been released to Sweden,
as well as the translator.
ANTHONY MITCHELL: Yes. I mean, both of them are saying that they were
questioned by US agents. Kamilya says the agent she was questioned by said
he was not FBI, but he was a US agent. The 17-year-old girl, the information
that has been received, as you say, is from her mother’s website, who’s been
writing about the case, and she has given those details. The CIA — I
understand an official of the CIA has not commented on whether they
questioned these two women, and certainly there’s been no — no US officials
commented on individual cases. So the details we have are from Kamilya and
the website of the mother. They both seem to have similar stories. They both
tell of a similar sort of modus operandi. But as yet, there’s been no US
confirmation on whether they were actually questioned, who questioned them,
and why. Kamilya said that the questioning she underwent was fairly basic
questioning, wanting to know personal details about her, where she was born,
where she was from, how many children she had, these sorts of things.
AMY GOODMAN: Anthony Mitchell, we’re going to leave it there, but I want to
thank you very much for being with us, a reporter for the Associated Press
who broke this story, "US Agents Visit Ethiopian Secret Jails," speaking to
us from Nairobi, Kenya; Jonathan Hafetz, lawyer at the Brennan Center for
Justice; and John Sifton, researcher at Human Rights Watch. And we will
continue to follow this story.
Received on Tue Dec 09 2014 - 17:34:56 EST