The Tirana Cell

post in a series on the House GOP's attempt to legalize "Extraordinary Rendition". Links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.)

(see also this post from June 15, which relies on the same source.)

Summary
In 1998, the CIA arranged for Ahmed Osman Saleh, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Naggar, Shawki Salama Attiya, Essam Abdel Tawwab, and Mohamed Hassan Tita to be captured in Albania and sent to Egypt for interrogation and imprisonment. According to the Wall Street Journal (see below for link, cite & excerpts--this article is excellent, highly recommended reading, and is the source for all of the information in this post unless otherwise noted.), they were all members of a cell of Egypt's Islamic Jihad that Ayman Al-Zawahiri's brother Mohamed started in 1992, and that U.S. officials considered "among the most dangerous terror outfits in Europe". Islamic Jihad was merging with Al Qaeda at the time.

The arrests were primarily planned by the CIA, which sent 12 agents to plan them & enlisted Albania and Egypt's help. The U.S. and Albania spent three months planning the operation, and Egypt issued pre-arranged charges and extradition requests against some of the suspects during this time. The arrests were carried out in June, July, and August. The suspects were flown to Egypt on a private jet and handed over to the authorities in Cairo.

All five of them alleged that they were tortured in Egypt. The Wall Street Journal Article Mentions that the Egyptian lawyer Hafez Abu-Saada, "who represented all five members of the Tirana cell, subsequently recorded their complaints in a published report." I believe I have found a copy of Abu-Saada's report, but only the Google cache is available.* These are excerpts from the report. (There are some translation/grammar errors, which I have not attempted to correct):

--Ahmed Osman Saleh (referred to as "Ahmed Ismail Osman" in Abu-Saada's report) "was detained in an unknown place for two months, and he was being kept in isolation cell then he was tortured by beaten and suspended him. He was referred to SSI in Lazogli and was detained for 45 days during that period he was beaten and the electricity passed in his body."

--Ahmed Ibrahim al-Naggar (spelled "Nagar" in Abu-Saada's report) "was arrested on July 2, 1998 on his arrival to Cairo airport as he was deported from Albania, he was detained in an unknown place for 35 days-as he stated to the EOHR lawyers in the session on February 4, 1999 before the court body. During this period he was blindfolded, and was lodging for 24 hours in a room covered with water to reach his knee and then he was moved to State Security Investigation in Lazogli, and he was tortured by tying his legs, shackling his hands behind his back, forcing him to lie on a sponge mattress putting a chair on his chest and another between his leg and passing electricity to his body."

--Shawki Salama Attiya (referred to as "Shawki Salama Mustafa" in Abu-Saada's report) "was detained for 65 days, the water covered his knee, his legs was tied and he was dragged on his face. He was referred to the State Security Investigation in Lazogli-as stated in prosecution investigation on September 12, 1998 for many sessions in Folder # 1 page 20, he was tied, his legs and hands was suspended and they passing electricity to his male organ and castrates** and they even threatened of sexually abusing him."

--Essam Abdel Tawwab (referred to as "Essam Abdel Tawab Abdel Aleim" in Abu-Saada's report) "was detained in unknown place and then he referred to SSI, during this period he was beaten by hands and legs, his right hand was injured by a sharpener tool, also his legs and hands was tied and suspended and beaten and the electricity passed in a sensitive parts of his body, as stated in the prosecution investigations 'their was a recovered wound.'"

--Mohamed Hassan Tita "was tortured –as stated in the prosecution investigations in page 65, he said to the EOHR Lawyer that “the electricity passed through my legs and back and I was suspended”.

There are also allegations that Egyptian authorities arrested and tortured the suspect's families. Naggar's brother Mohamed told The Wall Street Journal "that he and his relatives also were -- and continue to be -- harassed and tortured by Egyptian police. He said he had suffered broken ribs and fractured cheekbones. "They changed my features," Mohamed Naggar said, touching his face. ." And this is another excerpt from Abu-Saada's report:

Wives and Children: - The defendants Ahmed Ibrahim El Nagar’s wife, she was arrested after him and while her departure from Albania in Cairo Airport. She was detained in SSI in Lazogli for three days and they ------- her. Worth mentioning, she was arrested before in 1993 for three days and was tortured by passing electricity to her body.

-The defendant Shawki Salama’s wife called Gihan Hassan Mohamed Hassan and a daughter of defendant Hassan Ahmed Hassan (defendant # 104), was arrested on August 1998 after her ------- from Albania and she was detained for three days in SSI in Lazogli. She was tortured by passing electricity to her body, beating her and tying her hands and legs. Worth mentioning the prosecutor recommend her as a witness against her husband but the court improbable her witness from the -------.

According to the Wall Street Journal, all five defendants were tried and convicted in a mass trial known as the "Returnees-from-Albania Case" in early 1999. Naggar and Saleh were executed in February, 2000, based on earlier terrorism charges. Attiya was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Tita and Tawwab were sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. (Abu-Saada's report says that Tawwab was sentenced to 15 years.)

*If anyone knows how to do a screen capture of this document, please email it to me at katherinesblog@hotmail.com. (UPDATE: several readers have done so. Thanks!)
**From context I think this is a mistranslation of "testicles" and not a verb, but I of course have no way of knowing for certain.

Sources

1. Andrew Higgins and Christopher Cooper, "CIA-Backed Team Used Brutal Means To Break Up Terrorist Cell in Albania," Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2001.

I can't excerpt from this; I'd have to excerpt the whole thing. As I said, very very highly recommended. Unfortunately it is not available online. There is a link to the text here. (I relied on an official Westlaw version of the article; I do not see any discrepancies in that text.)

2. Hafez Abu-Saada's report for the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. This report does not have Abu-Saada's name on it, but it does have the name of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, and he was the secretary general of the organization. I know this because Abu-Saada (alt. spelling: Abu Sa'da) was at one point arrested, detained, and charged "with dissemination abroad of false information harmful to Egypt's national interests; accepting funds from a foreign country for the purpose of carrying out acts harmful to Egypt; and receiving donations without obtaining permission from Egyptian authorities," but Human Rights Watch believes that those were trumped up charges, and wrote to President Mubarak in protest. That letter indicates that Human Rights Watch consider EOHR to be a credible source.

This appears to be a current report from EOHR about the same incidents. It's not the same report--it's a subsection of a more recent, more general report on torture in Egyptian prisons--but it uses identical language to describe many of these prisoners' allegations.

Comments

[Katherine]

I am trying to keep the posts factual and save commentary for the, well, comments. So:

I have seen no evidence that the U.S. was involved in the arrest of the suspect's wives or brothers. The language in the report is a little opaque, but it does sound as if the wives travelled to Cairo voluntarily and were arrested on arrival. I can only assume and hope that the U.S. had nothing to do with it. (I assume the wives were not involved in terrorism, because from the descriptions I very much doubt that Egypt would shrink from adding them to the mass trial.)

However. The part about their families did remind me of this part of Sebastian's post:

"Third, it is a well understood conservative principle that people tend to push past the bounds of the legally permissible. Even though we have banned the use of torture in our country, the line between torture and non-torture is still skirted from time to time. Overzealous law enforcement people sometimes go a bit further than we allow. If we move the line to allow for exporting torture, where will those who go a bit further go? They will go to using a person's children against them. They will send a man and his wife to these other countries so the wife can be tortured in front of him. I can't predict exactly how it will work. But I know for a fact, and you do too if you think about it, that law enforcement pushes the line and pushes it hard. If we move the line so far as to allow suspects to be sent to other countries to be tortured, the actuality will go even further."

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