The politics of torture

Sheikh Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, more commonly known as Sheikh Abu Omar, would have made this same journey just over four years ago, though duck tape wrapped around his eyes and face deprived him of the view. Abu Omar had been taken from Italy, the subject of an “extraordinary rendition”, an extra-legal procedure whereby suspected criminals – read: suspected terrorists – are transferred from one state to another for interrogation.

 

Following the September 11th attacks, and the advent of the US-led War on Terror, extraordinary rendition became a popular method of dealing with terror suspects, enabling the CIA and other intelligence agencies to take individuals into their country’s custody for interrogation, in countries other than their own. Usually suspects are taken to their native country, which the CIA has argued leads to a more effective interrogation process. Critics point out that in these same countries – which have included Jordan, Syria, and Egypt – legalities such as due process are ignored, and torture is institutional.

 

“Only God saved me,” he says, leaning forward on the chair beside his computer desk. We are in his wife’s Alexandria apartment, where gold-gilt oriental furniture adorns simple white rooms with tiled floors and calligraphic Koranic verses hang on the walls. Under constant security surveillance – “my phone is tapped, internet use monitored, and movements traced,” he explains – and not permitted to work or travel, Omar spends most of his time here, watching the news and writing on his weblog. 

 

He opens a file on his computer and invites me to take a look. A grainy black and white image flicks up on the screen, of a blond-haired man with a mustache. It’s Robert Sheldon Lady, the former chief of the CIA’s Milan bureau who fled to the US, and one of the 26 agents accused of Omar’s abduction. “(The Italian authorities) took his villa and all his possessions,” Omar smiles. “If we win, that will go toward my compensation.” 

 

Upon his release he decided to leave the country, travelling first to Jordan, where “there were no well-paid jobs,” and then to Yemen, where “there were even less”. Unsettled, Omar joined the waves of Arab volunteers travelling to Peshwar, Pakistan, to help with the jihad against the Soviet Union in neighboring Afghanistan, finding work with Afghani refugees. After the war he finally got his long-sought ticket to Europe, to work with an aid organization in Tirana, Albania. 

 

But after only a few years there, the organisation aroused the suspicion of Albanian authorities, and in 1995 Omar was on the move again; to Italy, via Germany, in search of work. Through an Imam he befriended upon arriving in Rome, he got a job giving religious lessons at a mosque, in a village just outside the city. After a few years Omar received asylum, and in 2001 he moved to Milan, an Italian citizen.

 

“Life in Italy was wonderful,” says Omar, clearly relived to have found a job in Milan and not Sana’. “But after 9/11 it changed. The public became suspicious of Muslims, and Silvio Berlusconi launched a crusade against us, making derogatory speeches and accusatory remarks. People would insult Muslims on the street, or physically harass us, pushing us or grabbing our clothes.” 

 

Then, on the afternoon of February 17th 2003, on his way to the mosque, Omar was stopped on the street by a man claiming to be from the police, asking to see his asylum papers. “He looked at the papers, made a phone call, and then asked me to go with him. I refused, and seconds later a black car pulled up beside us and two large men pulled me inside. I tried to resist, but there were too many of them, and they were hitting me… The car was pitch black inside, I couldn’t see anything.”

 

Omar is “almost completely sure” that one of the men present during that interrogation was the Minister of Interior, General Habib al-Adli – a claim backed up in subsequent newspaper reports – who allegedly offered him an immediate return to Italy in exchange for informing on Islamists there. His refusal to comply saw him transferred to the notorious Hadel Obra prison, where he would spend the next seven months blindfolded, in solitary confinement.

 

“The only times I was allowed to leave my cell,” he claims, “were to use the toilet, or to receive torture.” With the war in Iraq underway, authorities were looking for information on Italian-based Islamists, and were prepared to go to great lengths to extract it. “They hung me upside down and beat me,” he says, lifting the sleeves and legs of his long jalabeya to reveal a number of scars. “They electrocuted my genitals.” He pauses. “But the worst was the rape. They did this three times.”

 

Omar’s current case against the Italian government is the first of its kind anywhere involving extraordinary rendition. Beginning in June, it has been suspended until October 24th. This is to allow for charges to be brought against the Italian police by the Italian government, who charge the former with defaming the country. Omar’s legal team is bringing criminal charges of kidnap, and civil charges of beating, torture, and taking him to a location (Egypt) where they knew he would be tortured, against the CIA – in absentia – and SISMI.

 

He wants to bring his moderate Islamic views into Egyptian politics, and, if permitted, will run in the next parliamentary elections as an independent. “Tolerance, inclusiveness, forgiveness – this is what Islam teaches, and what I propagate.”

 

There is no doubt that Sheikh Abu Omar says this with conviction; though whether he could ever extend the principle of “forgiveness” to Robert Seldon Lady, his colleagues, and indeed his own government, is less certain.

 

For the full version of this article, see NOX14.