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| Arabia |
| Former Yemen detainees seek compensation |
| 2006-05-23 |
| SANAA A former Yemeni prisoner in US secret detention has appealed to UN and human rights groups worldwide to help him and two other mates get fair compensation from the US government for material and psychological damages. He also demanded that all detainees in secret and illegal detention be released and compensated for "unbelievable abuses and suffering." The 37-year-old Mohammad Faraj Bashumaila, who languished in US secret detention for 20 months, says he can no longer find a job in his country or elsewhere to support his 14-member family after being unfairly dubbed a terrorist. "I can no longer find any job now because I'm a terrorist in the eyes of the world. The United States has portrayed us as terrorists, and that's the problem we face now after being released," Bashumaila told Gulf News here this week. The man was put in at least two different secret US locations after he was arrested in Jordan in October 2003 on suspicion of terror links. It is learnt he had travelled to Afghanistan in the middle of 2000 and stayed there for about four months as a visitor. "Unfortunately, people now cannot understand our situation and I would never beg for help from anyone. I want to work like normal people do. I was a respected businessman in Indonesia," he said. "My family sold my house, my car, my business in Indonesia, not to mention the psychological damage inflicted on my family and on me in that complete isolation from the world for about two years, after I was kidnapped from Jordan." It may be recalled Bashumaila left Yemen in 1999 along with his mother and father for Indonesia where he married and started a business in cooperation with his cousins who were living there. After a very short trial, the Yemen State Security Court ordered in March the release of Bashumaila and his two colleagues Salah Nasser Salem and Mohammad Abdullah Al Assad. The three men languished for nearly a year in Yemeni intelligence prisons after they were handed over by US authorities in May 2005. |
| Posted by:ryuge |