Monday, February 14, 2005
BELIEVE IT OR NOT
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Mike Carlton was sceptical about the existence of Saddam Hussein’s people shredder; after all, what business would someone like Saddam have with such a device?
So it’ll be interesting to read on Saturday what Mike thinks about Mamdouh Habib’s Electrified Treadmill of Tormentulation:
They take me in, like a jail and they have a roll, a concrete roll. They have a wire in the inside and lift me up and put me in the top of it and ah, they put electric shock on it and they make me run on it.
Concrete, by the way, isn’t a great conductor of electricity; according to The Age last month, the roller was in fact metal:
At times, he said, he was suspended from hooks on the walls while his feet rested on a rotating metal drum that delivered electric shocks.
Metal, concrete ... whatever. Habib’s affadavit submitted early January to the US District Court doesn’t specify the roller’s material. It does mention this, however:
Mr Habib recalls three water-filled rooms. In one, where a handcuffed and exhausted Mr Habib was locked on a number of occasions, the guards would gradually fill the room with water, rising steadily up Mr Habib’s body. The water continued to rise until it was just below Mr Habib’s chin as he stood on the tips of his toes. Mr Habib was left in the room for hours.
Even if the room was only a tiny one, and Habib stands only five feet or so tall, that’s a sizeable amount of liquid. And an extremely water-tight room. Speaking of liquids, when Habib was relocated to Guantanamo Bay he received the customary visit from one of the region’s eternally-bleeding prostitutes:
She ... it’s very rude, actually. She put her hand in her private. She take stuff with the blood and she threw it in my face.
Here’s his account in the New York Times:
He said that during one interrogation session, a woman wearing a skirt said to him, “ ‘You Muslim people don’t like to see woman,’ “ he said. Then she reached under her skirt, Habib said, pulling out what he described as a bloody stick. “She threw the blood in my face,” he said.
Over to you, Mike.
UPDATE. Habib’s story keeps changing. The SMH reported on February 11:
The Australian Mamdouh Habib, who was released last month, has said he was strapped down while a woman told him she was menstruating on his face.
(Via Brainster in comments)
UPDATE II. Only 33% of online Age pollers (who trend left) completely buy Habib’s story. 65% think he’s either embellished his story or that it’s mainly or entirely false.