Abu Ghraib Victims Speak: August 8, 2004
"Saddam Saleh al-Radi, a former Abu Ghraib detainee, has a unique perspective: He was jailed in Abu Ghraib twice — the first time for trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the mid-1990s. 'What U.S. forces did to me, Saddam Hussein himself did not do,' al-Radi said through a translator. 'During Saddam Hussein's time, we used to be tortured. The scars from the torture I received during the previous regime still mark parts of my body. But I was never forced into nudity. There were never any immoral practices during Saddam Hussein's regime.' [...] After three days of interrogations at one of Saddam's old palaces, he said he was taken to Abu Ghraib, put into a holding cell, and there a hood was placed over his head for what he thinks was about 16 hours. 'When they were torturing me, I lost consciousness,' al-Radi said. 'So, they removed the hood. One of the soldiers then urinated on me.' Then, the hood was put back on. And al-Radi was frog-marched to a cell on the ground floor of tier 1-A, known as the hard site. 'He then started pushing me,' al-Radi said. 'And wherever he saw a wall, he would hit me against it. Wherever there's a door, he would push me and hit me against it.'
Once in his cell, al-Radi said, he was forced, still hooded, down on his hands and knees. 'He pulled the bag off my head, and I saw something I have never seen in my life: A man's buttocks were facing me, and he was completely naked, [and] so were the others with him,' al-Radi said. 'I'm 29 years old. Since I'm mature, around the age of 13 to 14 years, until today, no one has ever seen me naked. Nor have I seen anyone naked at all. 'I am religious,' he added. 'My religion does not allow me to see the private parts of naked bodies of others. And for others to see my naked body, this is haram, forbidden for me. God will not accept this. 'They stripped me naked,' al-Radi said. 'They made me stand on a box used for storing soldier food, I think it's called MREs. I was completely naked with two bags on my head.' Al-Radi mostly blamed two American soldiers, Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick and Cpl. Charles Graner, both of whom are now facing military charges, for the alleged rough treatment. According to al-Radi, Frederick, 'threatened me by saying that if I did not cooperate with them by giving them information, they would make the soldier rape me.' What was done to him has had a terrible effect, he said. He had become engaged to be married just four days before he was arrested, but broke it off immediately after he was released from prison.
'For me to commit to a woman, I will need to be truthful to my other half,' al-Radi said. 'I feel that something is missing inside me. How can I say any of this to my wife? I am sure she will lose all respect toward me.' And that was before the world saw those photographs of things that had happened to him.
'Before the publishing of the photographs, I had been keeping my experience to myself,' he said. 'After the publishing of the photographs, my mother came to me and asked me, 'Have they done to you what they have done to them?' I had to say, 'No.' Then, a relative of mine, who was detained with us and who knew of my story there, told my family what he knew, and that they did so-and-so to me.' Now, he said, he doesn't see anyone — not his mother or brothers or sisters-in-law. He's too ashamed."
[ABC News]
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