Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991 TAG: 9103130354
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: SAFWAN, IRAQ LENGTH: Medium
U.S. military police say three to four buses and trucks have arrived daily for at least four days, dropping Palestinians, Jordanians, North Africans and Iraqis at this desolate border crossing.
Many were badly bruised and at least two men required hospitalization, the Americans said. When one bus load of men arrived here, a Kuwaiti soldier beat them with an iron rod as they disembarked, one American said.
"It's the Kuwaiti army, no question," he said. "They have the weapons, the uniforms and the patches."
A truck driven by a uniformed Kuwaiti soldier dropped 25 people here Tuesday afternoon, including an unconscious 28-year-old Moroccan identified as Aziz Mulai.
His arms were cut and badly bruised, and blood was caked on his face. His emaciated body shivered uncontrollably. Three friends said he had been unconscious for four days after Kuwaiti soldiers hung him by his feet and tortured him with electric wires.
U.S. Army medics, who took him away in a military ambulance, said he also had a concussion and appeared to have been hit in the forehead.
His companions - a Palestinian, a Sudanese and an Algerian - said Kuwaiti troops or resistance fighters had arrested them shortly after the Iraqis fled Feb. 25 and accused them of collaborating with the occupation army.
In separate interviews, all three said they were imprisoned and tortured by uniformed Kuwaiti soldiers in a government building or school in Kuwait City.
"There's a special room for beating," said Abdul Kade Bahkadem, 31, the Algerian, who had worked as a truck driver in Kuwait. "It's full of hair and blood."
He said the chief torturer was a Kuwaiti army captain. "We used to call [him] Al Wahsh" - Arabic for "The Savage" - Bahkadem said.
The three men said they saw one Palestinian and two Sudanese die after they were pistol-whipped three days ago in their crowded cell, which held 109 people.
Some prisoners were in their 60s, they said. Others, including at least three women, were being held in other cells, they said. All were being beaten or tortured, they said.
"This morning, my friend is still in torture," said Bahkadem. He identified the man as Salah Ali Doudi, a Jordanian living in Kuwait.
Jihad Ahmed Mahmoud, 20, the Palestinian, who was born in Kuwait, said he spent five months in an Iraqi prison until freed 11 days ago. But he said Kuwaiti soldiers arrested him four days later when he returned home.
"Every morning, one [soldier] pulls my hair back, and the other slaps me with a boot," he said. "In the afternoon, they would come with an electric cable and keep hitting me until it breaks."
The border accounts appear the most credible confirmation of government involvement in such brutality. Blatant Kuwaiti human rights violations, similar to those committed by Iraq, would complicate relations between Kuwait and the U.S.-led allied coalition as the tiny emirate is struggling to recover from the war.
At a news conference last Thursday, Kuwait's prime minister, Crown Prince Saad al Abdullah al Sabah, flatly denied that his government was unlawfully holding or torturing people arrested after the cease-fire.
"It is being alleged that the Palestinians residing in Kuwait have been subjected to and are being subjected to torture by Kuwaitis," Saad said in response to a question.
The prince said only a "small number" of Palestinians had been detained on suspicion of "committing crimes against our people" during the Iraqi occupation. He said they would be released or transferred to the courts for prosecution after investigations are completed.
"I would like to assure everybody that the rule of law will prevail and it will apply to everybody without discrimination," the prince added.
The three said they were told Tuesday morning that they would be released with no charges. They were called out of the crowded conference room, loaded on a truck with 22 others and driven to the border.
"They just said you have no passport, you have come illegally and you must leave," Mahmoud said.
As the sun set Tuesday, the three men huddled from the cold wind on a concrete border marker near the U.S. military police. They said they couldn't go back to Kuwait and were terrified of going to Iraq.
"What can we do?" asked Bahkadem. "They took my passport. I have no money. I have no paper. I don't even have shoes."
Some of the prisoners have taken refuge in bombed-out or abandoned homes nearby. The American troops, who guard the border, said they can only offer food and emergency medical care when the buses and trucks unload.
"They want to know where to go," one said. "We just point them down the road" toward Basra in Iraq.
by CNB