Look what happens when torture is used to gain faulty information!

What happened to Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi?

The death in a Libyan prison of the al-Qaida suspect reminds us of his shameful mistreatment at American hands

By Moazzam Begg
* Wednesday 13 May 2009 12.44 BST

"From Allah we come and to Him shall we return." Thus begin hundreds of comments on leading Arabic language news sites today, in response to the death of Ali al-Fakhiri – better known to the world as Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi. But the report of the alleged suicide in his cell in a Libyan prison, where he had been held since 2006, has been met widely with scepticism.

His capture in November 2001 wasn't announced officially until January 2002, when US media hailed al-Libi's capture as that of the highest ranking member of al-Qaida in US military custody. By the time I was kidnapped and detained by US officials and taken to the US detention facility in Kandahar, I had already heard rumours that al-Libi had been transported by the Americans in a coffin to some unspecified location. And when I was moved to the Bagram detention facility I was told by US intelligence agents that if I did not co-operate I would be meeting the same fate as him. They said he didn't answer their questions so they sent him to Egypt. There he told them his life story within two days.

What I didn't know at the time – but have learned and spoken about since – is that al-Libi was severely tortured, including by water-boarding, into confessing that al-Qaida was working with Saddam Hussain on obtaining chemical and biological weapons in order to kill Americans. This information was submitted to Colin Powell, the then US secretary of state, who argued the case for war against Iraq based heavily on this information – which he described as credible and reliable. But a year later al-Libi retracted his statement. That mattered little to the people of Iraq, who by then were fully under the US-led occupation.

The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) later opined that al-Libi's information was not correct and that he had made the confession either under duress or to get better treatment. What the world knew by then was that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that al-Qaida had no presence in Iraq until the 2003 invasion.

But in all of this, what became of al-Libi? In late 2006, President Bush announced that all high-value detainees (HVD) were being transferred from secret detention sites to Guantánamo Bay to face trial by military commission. Indeed, several allegedly high-ranking suspects, whose location had been kept hidden until then, were sent in 2007 to Guantánamo. They included Abu Zubaydah, said to be a close associate of al-Libi and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaida mastermind.

Al-Libi, however, was not so fortunate. Human rights organisations reported in 2007 that al-Libi had been handed over to the latest ally in the "war on terror", Libya. Here he was sentenced to life imprisonment – his charges or trial have never been reported or made public – and ended up, dying of tuberculosis, isolated in a desert prison. It's anyone's guess as to why the US authorities chose not to send al-Libi to Guantánamo for trial, but it seems blatantly obvious to me. Perhaps one of the brave lawyers who are not given the chance to fight their clients' cases in a court of law would have done so in the court of public opinion – at a time when the world's most notorious prison – and war – was so much in the public domain.

There had been much talk by lawyers, activists, journalists and human rights groups about speaking to al-Libi somehow – before it was too late – and reportedly a delegation from Human Rights Watch were recently able to gain access to him. If the report of his death is true, exactly what happened to al-Libi, like many other cases of enforced disappearances, will probably remain unknown. The reports say that he was last visited by family members on 29 April this year. Perhaps they have an idea about how he really died and why he wasn't sent to Guantánamo. They probably are too scared to tell anyone, even if they do know. As is often the case, the wife and child he leaves behind don't even matter.

But the case of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi – the man whose tortured testimony was used to justify a war that cost the lives of tens of thousands of people and, ironically, indirectly led to the pre-trial detention of thousands more – should serve as a stark reminder of what happens when torture is applied to gain information. President Obama has recently granted immunity to CIA agents who may well have been involved in al-Libi's interrogation and torture. If the desire to get at what went wrong is so blatantly covered up under cover of "national security concerns", there will be no end to this. And once again, the warmongers will get away with another odious and criminal cover-up.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

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