Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Kayleigh Harvey - Talk Radio News Service

If you were being tortured, both physically and mentally to the point of near-death, if your wife had been threatened with rape and your family with abuse would you sign a statement admitting to criminal offenses that you did not commit?

This may be the situation with Naji Hamdan, 47, a U.S. citizen, who claims that he admitted to perpetrating terror related crimes whilst under torture.

“[Hamdan] was placed in a blindingly white room, where he was unable to differentiate the day from the night for three months. In the room the AC was constantly on full-blast and Naji was denied a blanket or even a jacket to keep warm. For the three months that Naji was in state security custody the U.A.E. interrogators would alternate between placing him in solitary confinement for weeks at a time and taking him out blind-folded and handcuffed and torturing him,” said Reem Salahi, Hamdan’s lawyer from ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union).

According to Salahi the only evidence against Hamdan that the U.A.E. will present are confessions to crimes signed under torture.

Hamdan who lived for 20-years in Southern California, moved to the United Arab Emirates to expand his business in 2008. Today he faces life imprisonment under U.A.E. law for terror related crimes.

The FBI first investigated Hamdan in 1999, when he was placed under surveillance and taken in for questioning. Hamdan was never charged for any crime, but his lawyers say he was unfairly questioned because he is a Muslim activist.

In August 2008, after visiting family in Lebanon, Hamdan was taken and detained by U.A.E. security forces for three months. Salahi said “During that time he was interrogated about the years he spent in the U.S. and about information only U.S. federal agents would have. He was tortured severely. At least one American official participated in his interrogation and witnessed his torture,” Salahi said.

Salahi accuses the American government of allowing the U.A.E. to detain and interrogate Hamdan “knowing he would be subject to torture.”

In November 2008, the ACLU filed a habeas petition in the D.C. District Court alleging that the U.S. government was responsible for his improper detention and subjection to torture. One week after filing the petition Hamdan was charged in the U.A.E with “terror related crimes, based on nothing more than his forced confessions,” Salahi said.

On November 26, 2008 Hamdan was transferred to the U.A.E. criminal custody, a normal prison, where he was able to speak to family and legal representatives for the first time in three months since being detained. Salahi said, “the timing of this transfer is most certainly not coincidence, but a clear attempt of the U.S. government to avoid the reach of our lawsuit.”

Salahi added, “Naji Hamdan is a victim of the U.S. government’s policy and practice under the Bush administration, of requesting a foreign government to arrest and detain terrorism suspects, who we cannot arrest and detain ourselves under our laws.”

Salahi accused the American government of “asking another government to do its dirty work.”

Hamdan’s case will be heard in the U.A.E Supreme Court and no appeal following the decision will be granted.

Salahi is currently in Washington D.C. talking to Member’s of Congress about Hamdan’s trial. The ACLU is asking Congress for “Mr. Hamdan’s release because he is a victim of torture and the evidence against him was obtained through torture....If prosecuted in the U.A.E., ensure that Mr. Hamdan receives a fair trial and that evidence obtained under torture is not used against him....Investigate the role of the United States in Mr. Hamdan’s detention and torture.”

Speaking in support of Hamdan’s case, Dbraham Romey from The Muslim American Society (MAS) said, “We are saying to the Congress of the United States, to the President of the United States, to the Attorney General, to the Secretary of State, to leaders of the U.S. military, that we will not be silent and complicit in the ongoing abomination that is torture.”

The ACLU has made contact with Congressman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) who, as Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has written to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concerning this case. A response is still forthcoming from both Cabinet members.

Whilst in D.C. Salahi will contact other Members’ to ask for their support in releasing her client.

An U.A.E. Supreme Court trial date for Hamdan looks set to be given in the near future.