Case Study: Walid Muhammad Shahir Muhammad al-Qadasi
Walid Muhammad Shahir Muhammad al-Qadasi
Yemeni national Walid Muhammad Shahir Muhammad al-Qadasi was returned to Yemen from Guantánamo Bay at the beginning of April 2004. On his arrival he was detained in the Political Security Prison in Sana'a. An Amnesty International delegation met him there 11 days later.
The delegation asked why he was in detention as he had been released without charge from Guantánamo Bay. The prison staff said that they were investigating him, and that he would be released as soon as they had finished.
When the delegation met Walid al-Qadasi, he had no access to a lawyer, a judge or his family. He said that his family had not been informed of his arrival in Yemen. The delegation asked prison staff why the family had not been informed of his whereabouts, but the only response it received was that Walid al-Qadasi had forgotten his telephone number but that "we will inform them".
More than a year later Amnesty International returned to Yemen to discover that Walid al-Qadasi remains held in Yemen without charge or trial or even the opportunity to challenge his detention. He was moved to Ta'iz prison where a lawyer from the US non-governmental organization Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) met with him on 21 June 2005. Recent reports suggest that he may have since been transferred to Sana'a. Amnesty International also met with his father who is able to visit him twice a week.
As with Walid al Qadasi, many post-11 September detainees held by the Political Security in Yemen are subjected to a prolonged initial period of detention where communication with the outside world is denied. In many cases, family members have to wait weeks or months before they learn where their relatives are being held.
The Head of the Political Security in Sana'a told Amnesty International that Walid al-Qadasi and other returned Guantánamo detainees were being held at the request of the US authorities and would remain detained in Yemen pending receipt of their files from the US authorities for investigation.
When Amnesty International representatives met with Walid al-Qadasi in April 2004, he described his arrest in Iran in late 2001. He said he was held there for about three months before being handed over with other detained foreign nationals to the authorities in Afghanistan who in turn handed them over to the custody of the US. There they were held in a prison in Kabul.
"The Americans interrogated us on our first night which we coined as ‘the black night'. They cut our clothes with scissors, left us naked and took photos of us before they gave us Afghan clothes to wear. They then handcuffed our hands behind our backs, blindfolded us and started interrogating us. The interrogator was an Egyptian. He asked me about the names of all members of my family, relatives and friends. They threatened me with death, accusing me of belonging to al-Qa'ida. They put us in an underground cell measuring approximately two metres by three metres. There were ten of us in the cell. We spent three months in the cell. There was no room for us to sleep so we had to alternate. The window of the cell was very small. It was too hot in the cell, despite the fact that outside the temperature was freezing (there was snow), because the cell was overcrowded. They used to open the cell from time to time to allow air in. During the three-month period in the cell we were not allowed outside into the open air. We were allowed access to toilets twice a day; the toilets were located by the cell.
Walid al-Qadasi said that in Kabul the prisoners were only fed once a day and that loud music was used as "torture". He said that one of his fellow detainees "went insane". Walid al-Qadasi said that when the ICRC visited the prison, his cell was initially not opened for ICRC inspection. When one of the detainees started shouting to alert the ICRC of their presence, the ICRC official reportedly demanded to see the cell. However, according to Walid al-Qadasi, the prison authorities only opened the cell after some of the detainees were secretly moved to another cell away from ICRC inspection.
Walid al-Qadasi was eventually transferred to Bagram, where he faced a month of interrogation. His head was shaved, he was blindfolded, made to wear ear muffs and a mouth mask, handcuffed, shackled, loaded on to a plane and flown out to Guantánamo. There, he said he was held in solitary confinement for the first month of what would become a two-year detention. He told Amnesty International that the flight to Guantánamo lasted around 24 hours. He said he was drugged for his transfer back to Yemen in April 2004.
