“The death of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi means that the world will never hear his account of torture"

HRW's press release was notable for another reason, as they reported that they had seen al-Libi alive on April 27 at Abu Salim prison in Tripoli, Libya, where they had gone to conduct a fact-finding mission. While al-Libi was uncooperative, HRW did end up speaking to "four other Libyan prisoners whom the CIA had sent to Libya under the rendition process in 2004 to 2006. The men claimed that before they were sent to Libya, US forces had tortured them in detention centers in Afghanistan, and supervised their torture in Pakistan and Thailand."


***From HRW's press release:

As part of their investigation, the Libyan authorities should reveal what they know about al-Libi’s treatment in US and Egyptian custody, Human Rights Watch said.

“The death of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi means that the world will never hear his account of the brutal torture he experienced,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “So now it is up to Libya and the United States to reveal the full story of what they know, including its impact on his mental health.”

Al-Libi was returned from US custody to Libya in late 2005 or early 2006 and was detained at Abu Salim prison. The Abu Salim prison authorities told Human Rights Watch in April 2009 that he had been sentenced to life imprisonment by the State Security Court, a court whose trial proceedings fail to conform to international fair trial standards.

Human Rights Watch briefly met with al-Libi on April 27 during a research mission to Libya. He refused to be interviewed, and would say nothing more than: “Where were you when I was being tortured in American jails.” Human Rights Watch has strongly condemned the CIA’s detention program and documented how detainees in CIA custody were abused, but, like other human rights groups, was never granted access to prisoners in CIA custody.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/05/11/libyaus-investigate-death-former-cia-prisoner

"Al-Libi was sent by the CIA to Egypt for interrogation in early 2002. A declassified CIA cable later described how al-Libi told the CIA that the Egyptian interrogators had said they wanted information about al-Qaeda’s connections with Iraq, a subject “about which said he knew nothing and had difficulty even coming up with a story.”

The cable went on to say that al-Libi indicated that his interrogators did not like his responses and then “placed him in a small box” for approximately 17 hours. When he was let out of the box, the cable states that al-Libi was given a last opportunity to “tell the truth.” When al-Libi’s answers did not satisfy the interrogator, al-Libi says he “was knocked over with an arm thrust across his chest and he fell on his back” and was then “punched for 15 minutes.” It was then that al-Libi told his interrogators that Iraq had trained al-Qaeda operatives in chemical and biological weapons, information that was later used in Colin Powell’s speech to the UN Security Council to justify war with Iraq.

A bipartisan report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that that al-Libi “lied to avoid torture.”"

under oath or otherwise. They get to tell no-one what they did or why. I suspect it was arranged that way.

the massive press attention is overwhe... err, hmmmm.

OTOH, isn't that conVENient! The guy that gave the intel (under torture) that Colin used to justify the invasion of Iraq at the UN dies right when the investigation into torture and the war is just getting started... commits suicide.