http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2000/0518/wor3.htm
Irish Times, 05/18/2000
A prison in Lebanon where thousands were tortured
Lara
Marlowe, in Beirut, speaks to a former inmate of a notorious
prison under the control of the SLA
THE MIDDLE EAST: Hussein will never forget the night in
1998 when his Israeli interrogators finished with him. "Now you
will go to Khiam," one of the three men who had questioned him all
day in heavily accented Arabic said, referring to the prison where
thousands of Israel's enemies and their relatives have been
tortured.
"You will go to the dogs like you," one of the Israelis said. "And
they will know how to get what they want from you." The "dogs"
are Israel's own South Lebanon Army militia and General
Security Services - Lebanese who are paid, trained and armed by
Israel to enforce its occupation of the south. Now, as Israel
withdraws, the liberation of 160 men and women still held at
Khiam is at stake.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are unanimous in
their condemnation of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment without
trial - for as long as 14 years - and torture at Khiam. Israeli
officials have admitted to visiting Khiam interrogators several
times a year. As the occupying power, Israel is legally responsible
for the actions of the SLA. Yet, Israel has encouraged the SLA to
torment their fellow Lebanese, and Israeli agents even contribute
questions for their interrogation by e-mail.
Hussein was released from Khiam earlier this month, after more
than two years' incarceration. Because he fears for relatives still
living in the Israelioccupied zone, his full story cannot yet be told.
A well-educated civilian in his mid-30s, Hussein's health is
broken. His back is permanently damaged since SLA men hit him
on the spine with the butt of a Kalashnikov at Khiam. He limps and
his feet are swollen, and he takes heart-stabilising medicine daily.
I met one of his younger brothers who was also imprisoned at
Khiam. He suffered a dislocated jaw and broken ear-drum from
the beatings he endured.
Ironically, the one brother whom the Israelis really wanted - one
whom they wrongly suspected of working for Lebanese military
intelligence and who refused large sums of money to become an
Israeli informer - slipped through their fingers.
The General Security Services took Hussein to the border
crossing at Metulla, where he was taken to an Israeli Shin Bet
office. Unlike the SLA, the Israelis did not beat him. "But there
were threats. They said, `We will destroy your parents' house,' "
Hussein explains. "We will destroy your house. We will throw you
out of the area if you don't co-operate."
After interrogation by the Israelis, Hussein was handed back to
the SLA, who handcuffed and blindfolded him, then held his head
to the floor of their car for the short drive to Khiam. That first night,
one of Hussein's interrogators held a pistol to his head, saying,
"We are a militia. No one can control us. One life in Lebanon is
nothing. If we kill you we will say it was an accident."
For two months, Hussein went back and forth between the
interrogation room where he was continuously beaten, and three
"black rooms" numbered 13, 14 and 15. "The black rooms are
boxes barely big enough to hold a man. When they close the door,
you cannot see your own finger. There is a waste bucket in the
corner," Hussein said.
Hanging from an electricity pylon in the prison courtyard is
standard treatment for new arrivals. "They asked me to take all
my clothes off except my underwear," Hussein recalled. "It was
early spring, and it was cold. They hang you by your handcuffs
high up on the pole, so that only the tips of your toes touch the
ground. Then they sprayed me with cold water, every 15 minutes
so that I never dried off. I stayed on that pole until dawn, when I
heard the muezzin calling 'Allahu Akbar'. "
Hussein was only threatened with electrical torture. One of his
friends, who is still in Khiam today, was in a nearby interrogation
room. "I heard him screaming very loudly. Later, when I shared a
cell with him, he had burn marks on his wrists where they put the
electricity under his handcuffs. They use an old crank system, like
a telephone. They still use electricity if they have difficulty getting
answers."
Many Lebanese fear the torturers of Khiam will, like their leader,
Gen Antoine Lahd, escape to Europe or north America when the
Israelis withdraw. Hussein and his brothers want their names
published, in the hope they may be refused visas.
Jean Homsi, Wakim Nahra, Salam Fakhoury, Abed Sirha, Ongi El
Haj and Samir Moussalem were the cruellest among them, they
say.
"They have been torturing people for 15 years, and now they are
going to become tourists in Europe," Hussein said. "It makes me
very angry."
The South Lebanon Army militia detained a Lebanese doctor and
his daughter on suspicion of dealing with the Hizbullah guerrilla
group, an SLA source said yesterday.
The source said Dr Ibrahim Harb and his daughter, Malak (19),
were seized in the town of Bint Jbeil inside the western sector of
Israel's occupation zone. They were taken to Khiam prison. -
(Reuters)
