US MILITARY officials are holding a bodyguard of al-Qaeda terror leader Osama bin Laden at the naval base prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Washington Post reported today. Citing Defence Department memos and sources familiar with base captives, the newspaper said the bodyguard is Moroccan Abdallah Tabarak. It said Tabarak enabled bin Laden to escape from the battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan in late 2001 by making calls on his leader’s personal satellite telephone.
| That was after the blabs to the press that we were tracking his satphone. Making political points was much more important than protecting sources and methods. |
The information is contained in memos documenting meetings between military personnel and inspectors from the International Committee of the Red Thingy Cross. ICRTC officials, who keep their prison reports confidential, were not allowed to interview Tabarak as recently as February, the Post said. According to the memos, the ICRTC officials expressed concern that US interrogators were keeping detainees in isolation holds for up to a month for refusing to give information; were worried that lengthy interrogation sessions were having a "cumulative effect" on the mental health of the captives; and said the use of open-air cages instead of closed cells constituted inhumane treatment under the international laws of war.
| They're right, of course. Better to have just shot him on the spot, like the Geneva Conventions call for... |
The memos say the meetings were cordial, even though an October 9, 2003 memo states that "there was no improvement in any of the four major areas of concern," the Post said. According to the documents, new arrivals thought they were going to be executed because they were clothed in reddish full-body jumpsuits, a colour reserved for condemned men in the Arab world. Brightly coloured jumpsuits are commonly used by prisoners in US custody to make them easily identifiable, especially if they escape. |