Nine Years of Injustice for American Prisoner in Iraq
It is almost a decade since stories and images started to emerge of the torture and abuse of prisoners by the US military and the CIA at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2003 and 2004. Photographic and video images showed the physical and sexual torture of prisoners. As with many other episodes of prisoner abuse in Iraq by the United States and its allies, there have been few prosecutions over the past decade. For some prisoners involved, the persecution continues.
One such prisoner is Shawki Ahmed Omar, who marks his ninth year of detention in Iraq in October. Shawki Omar and his wife were arrested in October 2004 amid the growing insurgency, US counter-insurgency and spiraling violence across the country, leading to the arbitrary detention of many. The couple was taken to the Camp Nama detention facility near Baghdad Airport, where they were held and tortured. His wife, who was pregnant at the time, was released after 16 days. Camp Nama was, according to The New York Times, "the first stop for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away," where he was also held. Later, he was held at Camp Bucca and Camp Cropper, also torture facilities where he may have been subject to the forms of abuse shown in the notorious prison photographs.
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Omar was never charged by the United States, which instead sought to have his case transferred to the Iraqi courts. Given the very real risk of torture if he was handed over to the Iraqi authorities, his family filed a successful motion to have his transfer suspended by the US courts. In 2008, in a case combined with that of another prisoner, he won an important ruling when the US Supreme Court ruled that American citizens held abroad by a multinational force could challenge their detention in US courts through a writ of habeas corpus. US courts, however, cannot prevent their handover to a foreign jurisdiction. In July 2011, he lost his habeas case in the US Court of Appeals, as the court accepted US government assurances that he would not be "likely to be tortured if transferred to Iraqi custody." A week later, on July 15, 2011, he was handed over to the Iraqi authorities, under whose control he remains.
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Shawki Omar was handed over to the Iraqi authorities exactly five months before the US withdrew its military forces from Iraq at the end of 2011. Camp Cropper, where he was held by the United States, is where he remains under its new name of the maximum-security Al Karkh Prison. The conditions of his detention under Iraqi authority are no better. The Human Rights Watch 2013 World Report cites ongoing torture, abuse and prolonged arbitrary detention in Iraqi prisons. This summer’s jail breaks, allegedly by Al Qaeda freeing more than 500 prisoners in a serious of coordinated attacks, have made already harsh conditions even worse for inmates. Being an American citizen is also a disadvantage.
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