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The CPT Report
Yaseen Taha U.S. forces detained Yaseen Taha, a 33-year-old farmer and student in Islamic studies at the University of Baghdad, after a series of tragic events for his family. At about 4:00 p.m. on October 17, 2003, U.S. soldiers approached the village of Abu Hishma from the south. They fired randomly towards the village and shot Yaseen’s brother Aziz. Aziz was 25 years old, unmarried, and an English language student at the University of Baghdad. When Majida Thamir, Yaseen’s 30-year-old wife, saw her brother-in-law injured on the ground near their house, she bent down to try to help him. She too was shot and killed instantly. U.S. soldiers prevented bystanders from helping Aziz. He bled to death after about two hours. When Esmaa, Aziz’s sister, came and saw him dying, she started crying. One soldier fired a warning shot in the ground and imitated her crying in a mocking way. About a week later, after an attack on U.S. forces, soldiers came back to the village. They approached Yaseen on the street, asked him to identify himself and arrested him along with others in the village. Yaseen was accused of being involved in the attack since he would have a motive of revenge for the death of his wife and brother. Yaseen has three children. His youngest was only fifteen days old and nursing at the time of his wife Majida’s death. Since then, Majida’s brother’s family has been caring for the children. Family members went to Abu Ghraib prison but were not allowed to visit Yaseen. Yasser Hameed al-Mohamedy Yasser is one of many Iraqis known to have been detained by the Coalition Forces and disappeared. These detainees are presumably in one detention camp or another, but their families have been unable to locate or contact them. Yasser’s family has spent the last ten months searching for him. This is Yasser’s story as told to Christian Peacemaker Teams by his uncle, Hameed Ahmed Abdulla, and Yasser’s friend, Salah Mehdy Abbas, who was with Yasser at the time of his capture. On April 4, 2003, shortly before Baghdad was invaded by Coalition Forces, Yasser and Salah were traveling home in their Nissan pickup from the dairy in which they both work. As they were nearing Salah’s home on the outskirts of Baghdad (Radwania), they approached some sand piles alongside the road. Concealed from view by the sand piles, Coalition Forces opened fire on their vehicle. Both Yasser and Salah were wounded—Salah in the head and right thigh, Yasser in the leg and hand. After searching the vehicle, the soldiers administered first-aid, transported them to a helicopter which then took them to a hospital. Salah, who was the more severely injured of the two, fainted at some point during this trip. His recollection of that hospital is foggy, but he thinks it was on a ship in the Gulf. Salah and Yasser were separated when Salah was transferred to a hospital in Nasiriyah (which was under Coalition control by that point) for further medical attention. When Salah made inquiries, the hospital staff said no one by the name of Yasser had ever been admitted. Salah left the hospital early against medical advice in order to reassure his worried relatives. He also met with Yasser’s family after returning home. It was through Salah that Yasser’s family finally learned what had happened to him. Equipped with this new information, Yasser's family and friends began a search. They inquired at the Iraqi Assistance Center, the agency that acts as the Coalition Provisional Authority’s liaison to Iraqis and keeps lists of detainees. They then went to the International Red Cross and the Red Crescent. They sought out translators who worked in the prisons and, through conversations with released detainees, they learned that Yasser had been seen in three different prisons. Detainees released in the south of Iraq from Bucca prison in Um Qasr, and another prison in Basrah, reported that Yasser had been in both those prisons. More recently, a detainee released from Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad also reported seeing Yasser. THE CPT REPORT In December 2003, as the number of detainee families we were working with increased, it seemed helpful to compile a report to summarize the team’s findings. Matthew Chandler, full-time CPTer from Oregon, took up the challenge and compiled a report on 72 cases. Several of those cases are reported here. One is a follow-up with Dr. Talib and his wife, Nawal. Their three sons had been released by October 28, 2003 and were back with their family. All three told us the stories of their time in detention. The following is a shortened version of one brother’s story, corrected to make his English smoother: “Through the entire first night and into the first day for a total of about 14 hours we were held blindfolded and forced to kneel with our arms tied behind our back. I can still see the places on my arms where my handcuffs cut into my arms. At one point they placed a smaller handcuff, wire-like device on my arms and twisted them. A soldier said, ‘Tie it until you can see blood.’ They tightened the handcuff so that my hands swelled up and blood came out. The scars remain until now, December from the time of my arrest August 1.
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