For One Detainee, the CIA Torture Report Was A Victory
Source: Newsweek
BY LAUREN WALKER 12/11/14 AT 1:08 PM
For most people, reading the recently released executive summary of the Senate’s CIA torture report was gut-wrenching—especially the sections that detailed the gruesome “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by the CIA against prisoners. But for others like Mohammed al-Asad, a Yemeni national who was wrongfully detained and subjected to harsh treatment in the CIA’s rendition program, it was a cause for celebration. Tucked away in the 525-page summary is his name, marking the first time that a government has recognized what had happened to him.
“It was amazing,” said Margaret Satterthwaite, al-Asad’s attorney and a professor at New York University’s Global Justice Clinic, describing her client’s reaction to being named in the report. “He was really happy that he finally had his name acknowledged.”
As Newsweek previously reported, al-Asad lived in Tanzania for almost two decades prior to his capture and made a living trading goods and renting out space in an office building that he owned. He prided himself on being a respected member of the Muslim community in Dar es Salaam and married a Tanzanian woman with whom he had four children, with one on the way at the time of his arrest.
One night in December 2003, al-Asad says Tanzanian police took him into custody without reason and deported him to Djibouti. He claims that the facility he was taken to in Djibouti was part of the CIA rendition program as evidenced by the fact U.S. personnel interrogated him in a location that was guarded by locals.
Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/man-wrongfully-detained-cia-sees-acknowledgement-torture-report-291121