Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Media: AFP
Byline: n/a
Date: October 27, 2006
LONDON (AFP) - An Al-Qaeda terror suspect captured by the United States, who
gave evidence of links between Iraq and the terror network, confessed after
being tortured, a journalist told the BBC.
Iban al Shakh al Libby told intelligence agents that he was close to
Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and "understood an
awful lot about the inner workings of Al-Qaeda," former FBI agent Jack
Clonan told the broadcaster.
Libby was tortured in an Egyptian prison, according to Stephen Grey, the
author of the newly-released book "Ghost Plane" who investigated the secret
US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisons that housed terror suspects
around the world.
US President George W. Bush confirmed the existence of the network of CIA
holding facilities overseas during a September 6 speech defending
controversial US interrogation practices.
Libby was apparently taken to Cairo, Clonan told the broadcaster, after
being captured in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001
attacks in the United States.
"He (Libby) claims he was tortured in jail and that would be routine in
Egyptian prisons," Grey said.
"What he claimed most significantly was a connection between ... Al-Qaeda
and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. This intelligence report made it all
the way to the top, and was used by (former US secretary of state) Colin
Powell as a key piece of justification ... for invading Iraq," he told the
broadcaster.
Powell claimed in a UN Security Council meeting in February 2003, weeks
before a US-led coalition invaded Iraq, that the country under Saddam
Hussein had provided weapons training to Al-Qaeda, saying he could "trace
the story of a senior terrorist operative", whom Grey alleges is Libby.
"At the time, the caveats to say this intelligence was extracted under
torture were not provided," Grey said.
Grey said that, after being held in Egypt, Libby was transferred to a secret
CIA facility in Bagram, just north of Afghanistan's capital Kabul. The
journalist said he had also met other people held in that facility who
describe the torture that Libby faced at the CIA facility.
Since then, "he disappeared", Grey said.
"Like hundreds of other people arrested after September 11, he's vanished
into a sort of netherworld of prisons where astonishingly, President Bush
now says the prisons have emptied.
Byline: n/a
Date: October 27, 2006
LONDON (AFP) - An Al-Qaeda terror suspect captured by the United States, who
gave evidence of links between Iraq and the terror network, confessed after
being tortured, a journalist told the BBC.
Iban al Shakh al Libby told intelligence agents that he was close to
Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and "understood an
awful lot about the inner workings of Al-Qaeda," former FBI agent Jack
Clonan told the broadcaster.
Libby was tortured in an Egyptian prison, according to Stephen Grey, the
author of the newly-released book "Ghost Plane" who investigated the secret
US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisons that housed terror suspects
around the world.
US President George W. Bush confirmed the existence of the network of CIA
holding facilities overseas during a September 6 speech defending
controversial US interrogation practices.
Libby was apparently taken to Cairo, Clonan told the broadcaster, after
being captured in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001
attacks in the United States.
"He (Libby) claims he was tortured in jail and that would be routine in
Egyptian prisons," Grey said.
"What he claimed most significantly was a connection between ... Al-Qaeda
and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. This intelligence report made it all
the way to the top, and was used by (former US secretary of state) Colin
Powell as a key piece of justification ... for invading Iraq," he told the
broadcaster.
Powell claimed in a UN Security Council meeting in February 2003, weeks
before a US-led coalition invaded Iraq, that the country under Saddam
Hussein had provided weapons training to Al-Qaeda, saying he could "trace
the story of a senior terrorist operative", whom Grey alleges is Libby.
"At the time, the caveats to say this intelligence was extracted under
torture were not provided," Grey said.
Grey said that, after being held in Egypt, Libby was transferred to a secret
CIA facility in Bagram, just north of Afghanistan's capital Kabul. The
journalist said he had also met other people held in that facility who
describe the torture that Libby faced at the CIA facility.
Since then, "he disappeared", Grey said.
"Like hundreds of other people arrested after September 11, he's vanished
into a sort of netherworld of prisons where astonishingly, President Bush
now says the prisons have emptied.