CPT Iraq - Human Rights Testimonies

The following testimony was documented on July 27, 2004 by Maxine Nash and Sheila Provencher. The interview took place at her home, and was done with the help of a translator.

In summer 2003, my brother Abbas was sick and wanted to go to the hospital. He came here and took my car with a friend (his friend drove the car because Abbas cannot drive). I had guests, so I could not take him.

One-half hour later, some people told me that my brother and his friend had been arrested. I went to the Iraqi Police (IP) station in our neighborhood, and the IP station in another close neighborhood. I also went to the nearest military base. I did not get any information about my brother. Then I went to an acquaintance, an Iraqi translator working for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). He is my friend's husband. He took me in his car and we went to another military base. At that time, I met my brother and an Iraqi who works as a porter in my area, and an Iraqi Police officer. I met them in the reception area. The IP officer said, “We are sorry to have arrested your brother. He has done nothing. But his friend is Feyadeen.”

They released him. But he was mistreated badly. He had black and blue marks all over his body. I asked, “How can you mistreat him, since he is innocent and an invalid?”

His friends took him to the hospital, where he received pain injections and bandages. Then they took him to my house where he rested for a bit, and then they took him home. The family was shocked by his condition.

Two days later at 2:00am, U.S. soldiers and the same IP officer from the base came to my house asking for him. I said to them, “Why did you come here? You know that my brother lives in another house. Also my husband said, “You released him two days ago. So why are you here asking for him?”

Then the IP officer took me, dragging me by my hand, and asked to see my car. I explained that the car was in a garage [at a different location] because of the security situation. But he wanted to check the car. So we went, with U.S. soldiers with him. On the way to the garage, the IP officer asked me for a bribe, saying that the porter told him that I was rich. So I told him, “OK. Just leave me alone. It is not suitable for a woman to go out at this time of night. Let my brother be free.” I told him, “I am not rich, but my sister is rich. We will send you the money through my friend the translator.”

And the IP officer said, “Your brother is working with the resistance.” So at that point I knew that he was trying to frame me, just to get money. I said that my brother was handicapped (he has a congenital bone disease), and so how could he be working with the resistance? But I still promised to send the money with the translator. [NOTE: The translator was eventually killed while out on patrol with U.S. troops].

The IP officer and the U.S. soldiers checked the car and found nothing. Then they left me there alone. The owner of the garage had to drive me home, in the middle of the night.

The next morning, I went to my brother Abbas's house to tell him about the U.S. soldiers, and I asked him, “Did you do something wrong?” His wife said that he had done nothing wrong, and that there was no reason for us to pay a bribe. I told my brother to turn himself in to the U.S. forces. I had promised them that he would turn himself in, because I was afraid that if he did not, they would come for me. But he refused, because he was afraid of being beaten again. He later left our neighborhood.

I returned to the base and told the soldiers and the IP officer that my brother did not want to turn himself in because they had beaten him severely. Also, I went to the translator, asking him to help. I told him I wanted to pay some money to the IP officer. He said, “There is no need to give money to this officer, because your brother is innocent, and this officer is very bad.”

So, many days later, U.S. forces came to my home with the IP officer. I said, “Why are you here? My brother Abbas has a different home. You can go to his home and arrest him if you want.” But the IP officer said, “We are not looking for him, we are looking for you.”

Both the U.S. forces and the IP officer checked the whole house. The IP officer took $600 U.S. There were many soldiers, both Iraqi and U.S. They shot some bullets outside, and then claimed that the resistance was trying to protect me. This was from 1:30-2:00 in the morning.

Because of the shooting, the forces left the area. I took my small daughters to my other daughter's house. Then I came back home. When I came home, I saw that the soldiers had come back as well. I found them at the door. I asked my neighbors, “Who was shooting?” And they said that the Iraqi and U.S. forces were shooting. Then my neighbors advised me to leave my home. I told them that I was innocent, I did nothing wrong, so there is no need to be afraid.

But then the soldiers tied my hands in front of me and put a band over my eyes (although I could see through it) and they put me in the humvee. They took me to the base where I had met the IP officer. They put me downstairs in the basement. There was an American soldier there. He had a round face and white skin. He was making fun of me. The same IP officer and a translator were there too.

On the way to the basement, the IP officer whispered to me that this was nothing serious, that he had just wanted to bring me here to make fun of me. I said, “This is not my fault, I wanted to pay you, but my translator friend refused. I will pay you, just let me go free.” But the IP officer said that he would not interfere with the interrogation. He was wearing civilian clothes.

Then they put three IP officers around me in the basement. The IP officer whom I knew and the American soldier then left me there with the three IP officers. The three officers did the interrogation. They said, “You pay money to support the resistance.”

I could not pay the fees of my son's studies. My husband does his best to earn a living, and we have children to provide for. Also I have no job. I have no relationship with the Ba'ath party. Where would I find money for the resistance? So they started to beat me and continued all the night until morning. And they sat and smoked nargila. They were teasing me. They touched my neck, and other places. Also they spoke against me and my daughters. They threatened me by saying they would get my daughters, and they made horrible noises to scare me. They hit me in the face and pushed me from my chair.

I said, “Bring one person from the resistance who says that I paid them money, and you can hang me.” They knocked me down from the chair. But then another U.S. soldier who was a guard picked me up and helped me back to the chair and patted me on the shoulder and gave me some water.

In the morning, they blindfolded me, tied my hands behind my back, and put me in a humvee. People in the area were throwing stones at the soldiers and shouting at them to release me. Also, since there were some Iraqi police in the humvee with me, I got accidentally hit by some of the stones. When we got to another military base, the IP officers said that they could have died because of me.

At the second military base, the U.S. soldiers forced me to stand from morning to afternoon. There was a U.S. soldier in a tower there. I was alone. No one was with me. When I was tired from standing and I tried to sit down, he shouted to me and ordered me to stand up. I was still blindfolded and handcuffed behind my back. However, I could see a bit through the blindfold.

Then a U.S. soldier came and removed the blindfold and unlocked the handcuffs. Then he put my head covering back on, and helped me to sit on a chair, and brought me food and water. I had to break the Ramadan fast in order to eat or drink anything, and I began crying as I ate. Then the soldier started to interrogate me, with his translator standing behind me. The soldier told me not to look at the translator, to just look at him.

Then he asked these questions –

“Did you know why you were arrested?” I said it was because of my brother Abbas. They came to check my house, looking for Abbas, and then again they came saying they were looking for me. I told him the whole story, except for the part in which the officer asked me for a bribe. He asked me questions about my home, my work. I told him, “I have no money to pay for the resistance. If I had money, I would rather give it to my children, not to the resistance.”

Then he gave me a list of names and asked if I knew the names. And I said no. I am sure I do not know any of them. We are a peaceful family, I and my husband and my children. We are all educated people. Those people (on the list) are not living in my area.

“So,” he said. “I will get your husband to listen to him, to find out if what you say is true or not. Your information should be identical to your husband's, otherwise we will arrest you.”

They got my husband, and I and my husband left the base at 1:00am. After that, I did not go outside my home. I only went out for shopping sometimes, and I did not go outside unless my husband was with me.

In my area there is a park. Coalition Forces (CF) came and raided this area two months after my release. At that raid, they detained many people, including my brother Ali. He and his friends had been drinking. This was sometime around the 15 th of September.

In the morning, the CF set some of the drunk people free. I went to see my brother's friends to ask why he was not released as well, and they told me that the U.S. had kept him and that the U.S. soldiers had beaten him severely. The same IP officer who knew me had been there, and knew that Ali was my brother. My brother's friends said that he was screaming because of the beating. Then they said that Ali was moved with them to the second military base. His friends said, “Don't worry. He'll be released as well, because he did nothing.”

So I went home and found my sister Zayneb, who lives near me. She said that the IP officer and U.S. forces came to her home. She asked me, “Did you do something wrong? Or did our brother do something wrong? If you did, tell me and I can solve the problem with money.” Also, my brother Maher said that they had searched the home of his second wife. So Zayneb said that she would go to the second military base to find out why the U.S. forces had searched all our houses.

After that, I went shopping with two small children. We were in the same neighborhood where the military base is. One child was my sister's daughter (age 2) and one was my friend's daughter (age 6). I do this a lot. Usually my daughters are in school, so I take these other children with me to spend time with them. On the way to the market, I came across a civilian car (blue) and two Americans (the American soldier whom I had encountered during my first night of detention, and another soldier with a machine gun) and the same IP officer and their translator. The soldier I recognized was driving. He pointed a pistol at me and ordered me to stop. The translator told me to get out of the car.

“Where is your sister? Where are your brothers?” he asked. I told them that my understanding was that they had gone to the military base. They were laughing. The IP officer said, “Your brothers and sister went to the base? Are you kidding?” Then the soldier I recognized forced me to get out of my car. He and the other soldier took my car. They put me and the children in the back seat of their car. The IP officer was driving, with the translator in the passenger seat.

They took us to the first base where I had spent that terrible night. They told me, “I will take you back to the same basement.” I said, “I did nothing. Why do you want to take me there?”

They put me in a room with the children. Then the IP officer asked me, “Why did you do that to me?” (My sister Zayneb had filed a complaint against him). “What did I do?” I said. He replied, “Where is the money that you promised to me? I went to your friend the translator at the fixed time, and he did not come.”

I told him that my sister did not tell me that she had filed a complaint.

They kept me until 11pm. I was worried about the children and asked the soldiers to send them home. They said that according to the IP officer (whose name is Abu Mohammed) the children should be sent to the IP station. So they sent me with the children to the IP station, left the children there, and took me to the second military base, where previously I had been forced to stand for hours. I found out later that at 2:00am, the Iraqi Police brought the children to my home. Their families were waiting at my home, since all they knew was that the children had been with me. The little one was getting sick by then.

When I got back to the base, I found that the American soldier I knew and Abu Mohammed and their translator were waiting for me. At that time I was blindfolded and cuffed, and they took me inside to the garden. I removed the blindfold a little bit by rubbing it against the wall. And I was surprised to find my sister Zayneb and my two brothers Abbas and Maher there in the garden.

I asked Zayneb, “Didn't you say it would take just a half-hour for the interrogation here? So why are you here?” She said, “They deceived me. They arrested me and our brothers as well.” I found out that the first time she went to the base alone, the U.S. soldiers there told her that this has nothing to do with her, and she should come back with her brothers. So she came back with our brothers Abbas and Maher. She told Abbas and Maher, “The soldiers promised me they will only ask you some questions and you can go free.”

My brother Ali was not there. But Zayneb said that she had heard him screaming.

They kept us there with our hands tied behind our backs, with blindfolds on, for four days. I still have the marks on my wrists from the ties. From time to time, a doctor came to check on us. We were outside for four days. We had no beds. They brought us food only once during all those four days. We were beaten severely. But one U.S. soldier who brought the food gave us cigarettes even though it was not allowed.

The garden was surrounded by an iron fence. Only on the last day, the soldiers got a carpenter to come and cover the fence with wood. Before that, we were in the open air. There was no bathroom. We had to just turn our backs to each other when we needed to relieve ourselves.

Abu Mohammed was there sometimes, and a translator, and U.S. soldiers. At night, the soldiers turned on a recording of loud foreign music. When I tried to sleep, they forbade me, and played the music and beat on the bars with a wooden stick.

On the third day, all of a sudden they pushed my brother Ali's body in my lap. He was naked and dead. I could not figure out where all the blood came from. All that I could do at that time was to find a dirty bag. I dragged it over to cover my brother's body. I told people, “Don't speak to me, I have no power to speak.” All the people and my other two brothers and my sister saw this. After awhile the soldiers came and took the body away.

Later, I could hear other detainees screaming, but I did not know why. When I removed my blindfold a little bit, I could see that an Iraqi translator and Abu Mohammed were forcibly inserting bottles into the rectums of detainees.

I shouted loudly, fearing that my turn would come next. When he noticed me, he blindfolded me more tightly and put tape over my mouth, so much so that I found it hard to breathe. Later, I found out that they had done the same thing (raping with a bottle) to my brother Maher.

Later, a U.S. soldier interrogated me. “Is your sister giving money to the resistance?” Without waiting for an answer, he began beating me. He hit me with his fists on my face. He threatened that he would use electricity, but he did not. Next, a black U.S. soldier came and carried me with one hand while my hands were tied behind my back. He threw me back in the garden. There, our treatment continued – no food except once, no sleep, regular beatings by Abu Mohammed and the translator. Also they threatened us and said that they would bring my daughters here and rape them in front of me. Usually they did these things – beatings, threats – when U.S. soldiers were not around.

Then they moved me with six other detainees, by truck, to another location. They took us at night (1:00am), and the U.S. soldier told the U.S. guard in the back of the truck, “Kill them.” On the way to the new location, this U.S. guard began beating us so severely, you cannot imagine. We were bleeding so much, we did not know from where the blood came. When we got to the new place, this black soldier threw us out of the truck. There, we found U.S. soldiers, Iraqi police officers, and a translator.

“Will you beat us again?” we asked. They said, “No. Here there is no beating. You will be comfortable.” They gave us mattresses and pillows. And a U.S. soldier, a nurse, came and treated our wounds. I found that there were detainees there taken from the second military base that I knew. They told me that my brother Ali was dead. They said, “The U.S. brought your dead brother here, and an ambulance came and took him somewhere, we do not know where.”

Then, a U.S. official called the military base, and told them not to send dead or mistreated detainees – “I will not receive them anymore!” he said.

Then I spoke to the other detainees there. I asked them, “Why did you witness in the wrong way? Why did you tell lies when they interrogated you in the base? My sister told me that she saw you telling lies about me when they interrogated you at the base.”

They said, “We are sorry. We were forced to say that because of Abu Mohammed, who told us to say those lies in order for us to be released.” I found that they were severely mistreated. They were tortured so much, and now they were crying and asking me to forgive them, and they said that they would pray until I forgave them. So, Abu Mohammed did not keep his word to those people, because he did not release them.

Also, I met my uncle and his sons at the new location. He said that they had been detained just two days after me, by some Iraqi Police. He said, “They asked us whether you gave money to the resistance.” This uncle lived in my neighborhood, this is why he was detained. I have many uncles, but only he was detained. He is 65 years old and diabetic. He is still in Abu Ghraib today. Because of his diabetes, he has lost two toes while there.

The U.S. investigator in the new place asked my name and address. He said, “You are a terrorist, we will treat you like a man.” He did not give me time to defend myself. He also asked me about my relatives – names of my brothers, uncles, and cousins.

Two days later, they brought my sister and two brothers from the military base to the new place. They had been mistreated badly. My sister's arm was broken and my brothers were bruised. We passed six days together, and then they took us to Abu Ghraib Prison. When we got there, they made the men get out of the vehicle, and they took the women back to the place from which we had come. Two days later, they took Zayneb and myself to Abu Ghraib again. They took us to the computer center there and then they took us one by one to the investigator.

I went in first, and Zayneb was second. The investigator had on civilian clothes. It was just him and a translator. The investigator told me that he had interrogated my uncle and his sons. He told both Zayneb and me that we should be released that very day because he had received many complaints about Abu Mohammed, the IP officer who framed me. He said, “You and your sisters' testimonies are identical.” He treated us well, brought us a meal and fruit and said that we should go home soon. He was affected by our story. “I am sure that you are innocent,” he said.

After the interrogation they put us in a humvee and said, “Don't worry, you'll be at home soon.” They tied our hands behind our backs, put the blindfolds on, and took us to what we later found out was the heavy security section. There, we found three other women detainees, each in her own cell. But because we were sisters, we were in one cell together. The cell was 2x1.5m, with a toilet. In the same area, there were children in cells, one in each cell. All boys – one about 14, one 15, one 16. The women and the children were on the first floor, and we could see that there were men detainees on the ground floor.

The investigators questioned the detainees in the bathroom. We could hear the detainees screaming until morning. The soldiers made them take a shower in the cold. It was so cold in January. Have you ever heard of such a thing, to interrogate someone in a bathroom?

These interrogations continued until morning. Also they would bring in wild dogs and parade the dogs in front of us to scare us. A Lebanese translator would ask us, “Are you afraid?” and we would say, “No. We are not afraid.”

Ten days later, they took me and my sister and some children, all hooded and handcuffed, and brought us to a transfer center in Baghdad. There is a prison for women and children. I was comfortable there. They kept me there for fourteen days. There were sixteen women prisoners. The guards put me in the security section. All the people who work there are Iraqis – policemen and also women. The supervisor was American, and treated us well. He said that he was in charge of women prisoners. He said that all of the sixteen women had been given amnesty by Paul Bremer. But he said, “For you and your sister, you will go back to Abu Ghraib.” When I asked why, he said, “I don't know. Your name is on the computer to go back to the prison.”

At 6:00am one morning they came and took us back to Abu Ghraib prison. At Abu Ghraib, I met the same investigator who had said before that we would be released. He said, “I released you and your sister, and your brothers. Why are you here? Were you arrested again?” He got another investigator, a civilian Filipino, saying, “We released them, why are they here?” He asked us to go to our cells until they found out why.

There were some women prisoners, and a Lebanese woman translator. I asked her why they were keeping us here, since they had released us before. She said, “I have no information.”

One and one-half months later, another investigator came and asked me about my dead brother Ali. I told him the same story that I am telling now. He questioned my sister Zayneb the next day. Another one and one-half months later, another investigator came and told us that they were keeping us at Abu Ghraib for our own security reasons, because of the IP officer Abu Mohammed. They said, “We are afraid for you, maybe he will kill you, we have many complaints against him, and we are trying to arrest him.” They were trying to arrest him because of false information he gave about many people in his neighborhood. I believed the investigator.

This investigator also had on civilian clothes. The Lebanese translator told me that me and Zayneb were being moved to the CID. At about 5:00am they took us to the computer center, where we met an investigator from the CID. He was wearing a military uniform. The investigation took only ten minutes. He just asked general information.

Then they brought us to our old cells. Later that day, a high-ranking investigator visited us (I heard from other detainees that he had the power to release people). He wore a military uniform. He questioned me and my sister. I repeated my story to him. He said, “If I cannot drag that IP officer here (Abu Mohammed) and let you step on his head, I will resign.” I told him that I had heard that sort of talk before. The investigator said, “He will be the in a cell.” He was so affected by our story. He found that Zayneb and I were telling the truth. He said, “I investigated what you said from your people and your community, and I found that it was true.” The translator, who was an Iraqi-American, said “What is this, for the Iraqi people – to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and then to be detained because of Abu Mohammed!”

I believed them because they treated me well, whereas usually investigators treat people badly. He was so affected by my story, especially the part about the bottles. Both he and his translator were crying.

I asked the translator, “How long will we be here?” She said that another important investigator would come soon.

After four or six weeks, the next investigator came. At that time, we were living in a tent. The investigator said, “I come from the United States.” He wore a military uniform – he was a one-star general. The director of the prison received him. This VIP and two more investigators and a woman translator came to talk with us. The general questioned all of my family in detention – one by one. He apologized for the mistreatment. He said, “We are sent by Mr. Bush to apologize for this mistreatment.” He said nothing to me about compensation, but he asked my sister and my brother if they wanted compensation for their injuries. They said no, they just wanted to be released.

Then they took us to the CID, and the officials in the CID questioned us again. They gave us papers, and I wrote my story. “I was in Abu Ghraib prison for six months, deprived of seeing my children. But after six months, there was a change. My husband and children can visit. Some members of the Iraqi governing council visited. The food got better, and we received clothes (before that we had passed five months in the same clothes).”

They apologized to us for the mistreatment, and they said that if anyone was abused, that person could tell them.

You know, it is against our tradition in Iraq to detain women. And the soldiers depended upon bad Iraqi informants, and believed them.

The Iraqi government asked General Miller to meet us. And they asked him to open visits for us and to buy us clothes.

What you heard about sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib – it's not true. I was there for seven months.

Eventually, all of the women detainees got released except for me and my sister. People from our neighborhood demonstrated for us at a military base. U.S. officials came from the base to Abu Ghraib and took me to the base. There were negotiations between officials at Abu Ghraib and the base. Abu Ghraib refused to release us, so the official from the military base got permission from the United States to release us. A member of my neighborhood's local council vouched for me, to release me.