Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi Has Died In A Libyan Prison

[FourScore]

Source: Andy Worthington

...This news resolves, in the grimmest way possible, questions that have long been asked about the whereabouts of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, perhaps the most famous of “America’s Disappeared” — prisoners seized in the “War on Terror,” who were rendered not to Guantánamo but to secret prisons run by the CIA or to the custody of governments in third countries — often their own — where, it was presumed, they would never be seen or heard from again.

The emir of the Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan, al-Libi was one of hundreds of prisoners seized by Pakistani forces in December 2001, crossing from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Most of these men ended up in Guantánamo after being handed over (or sold) to US forces by their Pakistani allies, but al-Libi was, notoriously, rendered to Egypt by the CIA to be tortured on behalf of the US government.

In Egypt, he came up with the false allegation about connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein that was used by President Bush in a speech in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002, just days before Congress voted on a resolution authorizing the President to go to war against Iraq, in which, referring to the supposed threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s regime, Bush said, “We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases...”

SNIP

...The most important question that needs asking just now, of course, is whether it was possible for al-Libi to commit suicide in a Libyan jail, or whether he was murdered. I doubt that we will ever find out the truth, but whatever the case, the focus on his death should not focus solely on Libya, which only took possession of him after the US administration had made use of him to justify the invasion of Iraq. Whatever al-Libi’s actual crimes, his use as a tool in a program of “extraordinary rendition” and torture, exploited shamelessly not to foil future terrorist plots but to yield false information about al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, remains a low point in a “War on Terror” that has few redeeming features...

Read more: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/05/10/ibn-al-shaykh-al-libi-has-died-in-a-libyan-prison/

---

According to Valtin at Dailykos:

"It was al-Libi who was tortured by the CIA, subjected to mock burial in a box 20 inches high, in order to "confess" to a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, just days after the start of the Iraq War. Al-Libi later recanted. Afterwards, he was disappeared."
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/10/729730/-Torture-News-Roundup:-Breaking:-al-Libi-Found-Dead-in-Libyan-Prison

[EFerrari]

1. K&R

[PDJane]

2. There is no moral superiority for the US.

There is nothing that can be said to justify the treatment of this man and so many others. There is no high ground, and please don't tell me that "at least we don't cut people's heads off." The US has engaged in torture, trained torture techniques, and trained the military to withstand torture. The country talks about the military as though that's the highest calling for man or woman, and then mistreats soldiers, refuses them proper medical care, and allows women to be raped by the people who are supposed to be covering their backs.

It is time for the US as a whole to wake up to its own part in the most shameful of histories.

[IndianaGreen]

3. We should have waterboarded Chalabi and his whore Judith Miller

just on the general principle that they helped sell the war in Iraq.

[nolabels]

4. Just need to toss the shit-birds in prison and throw away the key

Ultimately, the truth is we are being eaten alive from the inside out

[Wednesdays]

5. K&R

:kick:

[EFerrari]

6. Here is a link to a short interview Andy gave us in March.

The DU link doesn't have hotlinks, so here's the OEN link:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/An-interview-with-Andy-Wor-by-Elizabeth-Ferrari-090306-843.html

[FourScore]

7. What an excellent interview!

Thanks for the link.

[EFerrari]

8. Andy completely blew me away. He's in amazing charge of

a large body of material. :thumbsup:

[santamargarita]

9. The Bush Crime Family's way of taking care of the witness list

:nuke:

[aquart]

10. Yeah. He was never gonna see daylight again.

[FourScore]

11. kick

[pleah]

12. K&R

[BlueJessamine]

13. Detainee Who Gave False Iraq Data Dies In Prison in Libya

Source: Washington Post

A former CIA high-value detainee, who provided bogus information that was cited by the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq war, has died in a Libyan prison, an apparent suicide, according to a Libyan newspaper.

A researcher for Human Rights Watch, who met Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi at the Abu Salim prison in Tripoli late last month, said a contact in Libya had confirmed the death.

Libi was captured fleeing Afghanistan in late 2001, and he vanished into the secret detention system run by the Bush administration. He became the unnamed source, according to Senate investigators, behind Bush administration claims in 2002 and 2003 that Iraq had provided training in chemical and biological weapons to al-Qaeda operatives. The claim was most famously delivered by then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in his address to the United Nations in February 2003.

Powell later called the speech a "blot" on his record, saying he was not given all available intelligence and analysis within the government. The Defense Intelligence Agency and some analysts at the CIA had questioned the veracity of Libi's testimony, which was obtained after the prisoner was transferred to Egyptian custody for questioning by the CIA, according to Senate investigators.

In their book "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," Michael Isikoff and David Corn said Libi made up the story about Iraqi training after he was beaten and subjected to a "mock burial" by his Egyptian interrogators, who put him in a cramped box for 17 hours. Libi recanted the story after being returned to CIA custody in 2004.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051103412.html

---

On the web:
Marcy:
Timing and the Sheikh al-Libi Death

snip:

"think of the people who would have an interest in having al-Libi--recently discovered by Human Rights Watch--silenced. If al-Libi had an opportunity to testify about how he fabricated the reports of al Qaeda ties to Iraq, it would focus intense attention on Dick Cheney's lies to get us into war. And Egypt can ill afford to have the extent of their cooperation with the US on these matters exposed.

So there are a lot of reasons why al-Libi's recent death is all the more suspicious."


http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/05/12/timing-and-the-sheikh-al-libi-death/#more-4099


McClatchy
Report: Abusive tactics used to seek Iraq-al Qaida link

snip:

Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn’t any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies.”Senior administration officials, however, “blew that off and kept insisting that we’d overlooked something, that the interrogators weren’t pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information,” he said

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html

[pleah]

14. K&R

[Solly Mack]

15. K&R

[Xipe Totec]

16. CIAcide? n/t

[Octafish]

17. How convenient.

Who knows? The guy probably did kill himself.
It doesn't matter how he got that way. Dead men tell no tales.
That's what benefits the War Party.

[JDPriestly]

21. Who knows? But, it does seem that people who are "incovenient"

to certain people die at the most convenient times. These convenient deaths have happened a few too many times. It's really getting hard to believe that all of them are just coincidences.

Scooter Libby needs to watch his back. I bet he has some interesting tales to tell.

On edit, I want to make clear, I'm not making a threat to Scooter Libby. I have utterly no motive nor means to harm him in any way. But, he is one example of many people who could be inconvenient to a certain in-crowd. There are just too many of these timely deaths. Ken Lay, the D.C. Madame, the list is really long and it goes back much further than Ken Lay.

[KoKo]

18. Cheney is sweating bullets....

how convenient it is....

[Soylent Brice]

19. dead men tell no tales.

K&R

[leveymg]

20. Way more to this story than the sanitized version reported in the WaPo, etc. Check this out:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5638152

[Divine Discontent]

22. oh yes... he could survive this country's torture but he offs himself in a Libyan prison

see, being in US custody isn't THAT bad! :sarcasm:

We all know how obvious his death is, and they still don't care. Guess they figured he was one of the ones that would talk and tell all the transporting, torture, people who were there, etc.

The justice department is a joke unless torture is punished.

[Stellabella]

23. Gee. How convenient for the neocons.

Another 'suicide'.

[ConcernedCanuk]

24. Very convenient - I suspect that many more have been and WILL disappear

.
.
.

as the BFEE and PNAC gang try to hide their tracks

won't work guys, never has

will just delay your demise

ask Hitler's buddies - -

OH YEAH - I furgot

you PNAC BFEE gangs ARE Hitler's buddies

Prescott be atwitchin' in his grave

y'all can join him soon

PLEASE