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11/15/2005:

"Former Iraqi Detainees Allege Torture by U.S. Troops"

..."They took us to a cage — an animal cage that had lions in it within the Republican Palace," he said. "And they threatened us that if we did not confess, they would put us inside the cage with the lions in it. It scared me a lot when they got me close to the cage, and they threatened me. And they opened the door and they threatened that if I did not confess, that they were going to throw me inside the cage. And as the lion was coming closer, they would pull me back out and shut the door, and tell me, 'We will give you one more chance to confess.' And I would say, 'Confess to what?'"

Inside the Republican Palace — the site of Saddam's former office — Sabbar says troops taunted him with a mock execution.

"I found the other prisoners who had come before me there in the line beside me mocking, in a way as to make it a mock execution," he said. "They all stood up, those of us who could stand up. They directed their weapons towards us. And they shot, shot towards our heads and chests. And when the shots sounded, some of us lost consciousness. Some started to cry. Some lost control of their bladders. And they were laughing the whole time."

After a night in jail at the Republican Palace, Khalid says he was taken to the prison at the Baghdad airport where the torture continued.

"They put us in individual cells," he said. "And before entering those cells, they formed two teams of American soldiers — one to the right, one to the left — about 10 to 15 each American soldiers. And they were holding wooden sticks. It was like a hallway, like a passage. And they made us go that hallway while shouting at us as we were walking through and hitting us with the wooden sticks. They were beating us severely."

Khalid says U.S. soldiers deprived him of food, water, and sleep. He claims he began to suffer from stomach ulcers, but was denied medical care.

All the while, Khalid says, soldiers routinely asked for information about Saddam's whereabouts: "I said to him, 'How would I know where Saddam is?' And I thought that he was kidding me. And that's why I laughed. And he beat me again."

Khalid refuses to talk about one other allegation. In his legal complaint, he holds U.S. soldiers responsible for "Sexually assaulting and humiliating [him] … by grabbing his buttocks and simulating anal rape by pressing a water bottle against the seat of his pants; putting a hand inside [his] … pants and grabbing his buttocks during a severe beating … (and) brandishing a long wooden pole and threatening to sodomize him on the spot and every night of his detention."
abcnews.go.com