| IRAQ WAR - LOOKING GLASS NEWS | |
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Iraq prisoner abuse witnesses "disappear" in US custody |
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from The Insider
Entered into the database on Friday, November 04th, 2005 @ 19:15:54 MST |
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The star witness in the trial of US troops for prisoner abuse in Iraq
and Afghanistan has mysteriously disappeared. Omar al-Farouq would have been
the first detainee to testify against an American soldier. The US regime previously claimed that Omar al-Farouq was a "top
al-Qaeda operative" and "one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants",
but now they claim that he was somehow able to escape. The only evidence of
his escape is an anonymous "leak" to the mass media, as usual from
an "unnamed" US official. Three other witnesses are said to have "escaped" at the same
time, so the only four people ever to succeed in an "escape" from
a Guantanamo-bay-style maximum secitity US military prison all happen to be
witnesses who wanted to testify against the US military. There is sufficient anecdotal evidence here to justify asking the question:
is the US military willing to eliminate people who threaten their position in
occupied countries? Yet there is no hint of this obvious question in the western
media. As previous examples demonstrate, the mass media would not be so restrained
if the same incident happened in an enemy state. SOURCE Washington Post, "Pentagon: Top al-Qaida Operative Escaped",
1 November 2005. FORT BLISS, Texas -- A man once considered a top al-Qaida operative escaped
from a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan and cannot testify against
the soldier who allegedly mistreated him, a defense lawyer involved in a prison
abuse case said Tuesday. Omar al-Farouq was one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants in Southeast Asia
until Indonesian authorities captured him in the summer of 2002 and turned him
over to the United States. A Pentagon official in Washington confirmed Tuesday evening that al-Farouq escaped
from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan, on July 10. The official
spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. An Army lawyer for Sgt. Alan J. Driver, a reservist accused of abusing Bagram
detainees, asked Tuesday where al-Farouq was and what the Army had done to find
him in time for Driver's court proceedings. Capt. John B. Parker, a prosecutor, said al-Farouq and three others escaped
from the Bagram detention center and have not been found. "If we find him ... we will make him available," Parker said [with
a smirk on his face]. FURTHER READING CBS News (AP), "Pentagon: Top al-Qaida Operative Escaped",
2 November 2005. A man once considered a top al-Qaida operative escaped from a U.S.-run detention
facility in Afghanistan and cannot testify against the soldier who allegedly
mistreated him, a defense lawyer involved in a prison abuse case said Tuesday. Omar al-Farouq was one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants in Southeast Asia
until Indonesian authorities captured him in the summer of 2002 and turned him
over to the United States. A Pentagon official in Washington confirmed Tuesday evening that al-Farouq escaped
from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan, on July 10. The official
spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. An Army lawyer for Sgt. Alan J. Driver, a reservist accused of abusing Bagram
detainees, asked Tuesday where al-Farouq was and what the Army had done to find
him in time for Driver's court proceedings. Capt. John B. Parker, a prosecutor, said al-Farouq and three others escaped
from the Bagram detention center and have not been found. "If we find him ... we will make him available," Parker said. Al-Farouq could have been the first detainee to testify against a soldier in
the Afghanistan prisoner abuse case. |
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