Ex-Taliban claims abuse at Gitmo, Bagram: 'They were beating me'

[BlueJessamine]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/24/gitmo.taliban.prisoner/#cnnSTCText

(CNN) -- As one of the right-hand men to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef was one of the first Taliban leaders arrested when the United States began military operations in Afghanistan.

Bagram Air Base and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba -- spending more than three years in Guantanamo before he was released in 2006.

Now free, Zaeef -- who claims he is no longer a Taliban member -- alleges the military engaged in abusive treatment both at Bagram and Guantanamo. He says he is still bitter about his time there. Closing Guantanamo Bay, he told CNN, is only part of the justice those detained there deserve.

"It was a bad stain on American history," he said. "If they are closing Guantanamo for justice, they have to bring the people who are torturing people, who abuse people, to justice."

The military has classified those like Zaeef as "enemy combatants," although the Justice Department in March said it would dispose of that classification. The U.S. military in Afghanistan said it was not authorized to comment on Zaeef's or any other individual case.

"I didn't see a worse situation in my life than Bagram," recalled Zaeef. "They were beating me, they put me in the snow, in the cold, until I was unconscious."

snip

"Some prisoners are released after four years without any conviction of a crime, which is not fair," he said. "These prisoners are not treated according to the convention of human rights, either in Guantanamo or Bagram."

Preliminary intelligence assessments show more than 14 percent of detainees released from Guantanamo either returned or are suspected of returning to terrorism, the Pentagon said earlier this week. Zaeef -- who was Afghanistan's ambassador to Pakistan under the Taliban regime at the time of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States -- said he believes the statistics, as detainees are often angry when released.

"Anyone in the world, to be deprived of any kind of human rights, any kind of justice -- he becomes angry, so he will try to get revenge," he said. While detained, he said, detainees sometimes lose everything -- homes, property, money -- and "they have nothing after that."
--------------------------

Not to excuse terrorism, but after being released and finding themselves destitute, returning to terrorism could be the only means of survival in that poverty-stricken nation.