'Hooded' Abu Ghraib ex-prisoner talks to New York Times

[kpete]

'Hooded' Abu Ghraib ex-prisoner talks to New York Times
RAW STORY
Published: March 10, 2006


Slated for the front page of Saturday's New York Times is an interview with the former Abu Ghraib detainee who was photographed after being forced to stand on top of a cardboard box for hours with electrical wires tied to his outstretched arms, RAW STORY has found.

Ali Shalal Qaissi, along with eight other ex-prisoners, is part of a class action lawsuit filed by the ACLU and Human Rights First against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for the torture and abuse that went on at the Iraqi prison while under his command: Ali et al. v Rumsfeld Consolidated Amended Complaint For Declaratory Relief and Damages.

Excerpts from the forthcoming article by Hassan M. Fattah:

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Ali Shalal Qaissi's wounds are still raw.

There is the mangled hand, an old injury that became infected by the shackles chafing his skin. There is the slight limp, made worse by days tied in uncomfortable positions. And most of all, there are the nightmares of his nearly six-month ordeal at Abu Ghraib Prison in 2003 and 2004.

Qaissi, 43, was prisoner 151716 of Cellblock 1A. The picture of him standing hooded atop a cardboard box, attached to electrical wires with his arms stretched wide in an eerily prophetic pose, became the indelible symbol of the torture at Abu Ghraib. The U.S. military said Thursday that it would abandon the prison and turn it over to the Iraqi government.

"I never wanted to be famous, especially not in this way," he said, as he sat in an office in Amman. That said, he is now a prisoner advocate who clearly understands the power of the image: It appears on his business card.

Researchers with both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say they have interviewed Qaissi and, along with lawyers suing military contractors in a class-action suit over the abuse, believe that he is the man in the photograph.

http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Hooded_Abu_Ghraib_exprisoner_talks_to_0310.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/international/middleeast/11ghraib.html?hp&ex=1142053200&en=043f0ea1824b58fe&ei=5094&partner=homepage