CPTnet
January 15, 2003
IRAQ: The detention of Ihsan Abdullah Ihsan Kamil

[Note: The following report was based on an interview with Ihsan's
brother-in-law and has been edited for length. People wishing to see a
report the team in Iraq has completed summarizing human rights abuses by
Coalition Forces in Iraq may download it from
http://www.cpt.org/iraq/iraq.php.]

On September 22, 2003, Ihsan was taken in a house raid at the family farm
Northeast of Baghdad after being accused of providing housing for a wanted
person in his home. The wanted person was arrested by U.S. forces in May
2003. The person in question, Rashid Taan Kazim (2 of Spades) was Ba'Ath
Party Regional Chairman for Al-Anbar Governorate. According to the family,
soldiers did not find any illegal persons or objects in the home and removed
nothing from the home. The family believes the arrest of Ihsan was due to a
malicious tip' from someone who is trying to gain the family farmland or
discredit Ihsan.

On Nov. 15th, a family member called CPT to say that Ihsan got a message to
them via a released detainee that Ihsan was cleared of his original charges
but was now charged with possession of firearms. The family assured CPT
that Ihsan was not carrying a weapon at the time of the raid. There was
one legal gun in house, which was stored in a bedroom.

Ihsan was told he would be freed from Tikrit in one week. He began
collecting contact information for other families. Instead of being
released, he found himself transferred to Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

The Coalition detainee roster for November 16th states that Ihsan is
charged with harboring the 2 of Spades, ( the celebrity detainee identified
above) despite being cleared in his judicial review. CPT was told Ihsan is
now working as a doctor's assistant in the prison hospital, due to his
English language ability.

Recently a relative went to an information center in Abu-Ghraib to ask for a
visit to Ihsan, and he was given a visit date on 8 March 2004. "How can this
happen in a democracy against an innocent person?" said the relative.

CPT was told during the course of this case that one released person stayed
for only twenty days, because his family paid an undisclosed amount of money
for that detainee's release. The informant said, "They paid it to a person
working with the Coalition Forces." Speaking on behalf of the family a
relative said, "We are willing to pay for Ihsan's release but we don't know
a reliable person to pay. We don't know where to go or what to do, it is
now more than two months since his arrest," said the relative.

The relative told the team, "Ihsan has not done anything wrong. He never
worked for the government and never had an association with the old regime."
In fact the former regime confiscated parts of the family property without
compensation.

CPT contacted a US officer in Abu-Ghraib prison, who said that Ihsan is in a
queue awaiting magistrate review, but he could not tell CPT when he
will get his turn.