August 15, 1993
ALRAYAH COMPLAINT
To Minister of Justice and Attorney General
Through the Commissioner of Prisons
Through Director of State Prisons, Port Sudan
Through Director of Suakin State Prison
Greetings and respect
to all.
Subject:
Complaint
Dear Sir, the Minister
of Justice:
I best start my
complaint with what God says in the Holy Qur'an: "Allah command
the maintenance of justice and the doing of good," and what the
Prophet Muhammad, the most noble, said, "How would Allah be merciful
to a people whom their strong is unjust to their weak."
I, prisoner Brigadier
(retired) Mohamed Ahmed Elrayah Elfaki, 52 years of age, that had been
arrested from my house by security forces at the night of Tuesday on
August 20, 1991, had been forced to reach the Security Department with
my own car.
When I arrived,
they took away the keys of my car and took me to the reception where
they asked me about the contents of the car. They wrote the contents
on a piece of paper in front of me as follows:
A revolver made
in Spain, stra 6.35 with 50 bullets, US$8720, German Marks of small
value; 5 new tires, Opel car new spare parts, Toyota Cressida car lights
and spare parts, a private notebook of a saving account in the German
Commercial Bank at Bon, Germany, and a file consisting of correspondence
on a tender for the import of arms and spare parts.
Captain Asim Kabashi,
a member of the committee that interrogated me, showed me all these
contents. I asked him to deliver the contents next morning to my brother-in-law,
Brigadier Mamoun Abdelaziz Nugud since he would be coming to take my
car. Two days later, Captain Asim Kabashi told me that they had delivered
the car and the contents to the person named.
On my way to the
Kober Prison after I had been sentenced and moved from detention at
the State Security, I learned that Brigadier Nugud was appointed as
a military attaché then transferred to Washington to which he
left the country to attend his new job. Regretfully, I knew later from
him that he had received the car empty from all of the registered contents.
Dear Sir, Minister
of Justice:
I have been charged
and prosecuted by a secretive artificial military court on September
9, 1991, a month after I was arrested. I suffered a lot of pain during
this month. I was physically and psychologically tortured in a number
of ways by members of the prosecuting committee and the guards of the
Security. This kind of torture, which lacked the simplest sense of humanity,
continued up until the day I was sentenced on December 3, 1991 with
a death penalty that was commuted to life imprisonment. On December
4, 1991, I was transferred from the State Security Headquarters to the
Kober Prison. On December 10, 1991, I was again moved to the Shala Prison
in DarFur.
For a period of
18 months at the Shala Prison, I suffered ways of torture that no one
could believe because they contradicted the upright teachings of religion
and what State managers, like yourself, keep assuring people of the
human rights guarantees that there is no torture for those detained.
I say, "No
Sir!"
Terrible tortures
existed but that no religious teaching or even secular principles approved
of them. Torture ranged between electric shocks to extensive beating
and rape, etc. I personally passed through horrific types of torture
that left their hateful marks on my body and made me a habitual patient
of Elfashir Hospital. During that time, I tool a lot of medicines and
tranquilizers; and yet, none of them helped. Based on a medical recommendation
from the Hospital's Committee, I was transferred for further treatment
in Khartoum.
Dear Sir, Minister
of Justice:
I feel ashamed
and embarrassed having to tell all sorts of tortures that I passed through
and the negative impact it had on my physical and psychological health.
I would also write the names of the torturers who were members of the
interrogation committee and guards of the imprisonment cells. These
persons were granted rights to torture the prisoners more than the Nazi
of Hitler exercised. The following are the names that the torturers
used to call on one another. I do not know whether the names were true
or false. However, I can recognize these torturers one by one if I see
them.
The tortures I
suffered included:
- hard beatings
with whips and other plastic materials used for beating on the head
and other parts of the body.
- Tying a prisoner's
body strongly with iron chains, hanging upside down and forcibly standing
up to two days.
- Tying one's
hands from outside the cell door with buckets loaded with wet brick.
- Splashing us
with hot or cold water in case we get tired of standing.
- Locking in containers
or in toilet rooms that lack air circulation.
- Blindfolding
the eyes in a violent way for long hours.
- When transferred
to the Security Headquarters for investigation we would be ordered
to lie down on our backs in cars covered with blankets and plastic
materials. The guards would push us down with their boots. If any
one tried to move or uttered a voice, the guards would kick us hard
with their boots and machine guns. The tortures were carried out by
these persons: Kamal, Hassan (whose real name is Ahmed Mohamed from
the Eissaliat area) the most wicked and rude. Hussain, Abu Zaid, Omer,
Elwqan, Elgamry, Ali, Siddig, Osman, Khugalki, Magboul, Mohamed, Eltahir,
and others whom I didn't recognize.
- I was personally
raped, and solid items were forced into sensitive parts of my body.
Captain Asim Kabashi did that with owhomdidn't recognize.
- The result of
this torture was a partial failure of my sexual organ as a result
of the damage caused by pressing on it with an iron rod. It was also
Asim Kabashi who exercised this torture.
- Boxing in the
head and face, also by Asim Kabashi and another captain called Isam,
and at one time by the chief of the investigation committee whose
name was Abdelmut'al.
- Calling indecent
names with a continuous threat to abuse my wife before my eyes by
Asim Kabashi and Salah Abdalla, whose fame is Salah Bush, that witnessed
a few times my interrogation.
- Inserting a
stick between the legs and twisting the whole body vigorously to the
back while kicking hard on the belly, also by Asim Kabashi and Captain
Mohamed Elamin who was responsible for guarding, as well as others
I didn't know.
- Applying electric
shocks by Hassan together with the burning of the skin with cigarettes
by Asim Kabashi.
All these tortures
affected me in the following way:
- Continuous headache
with a comma nearly similar to epilepsy.
- Loss of my left
"ball" after it had been totally damaged.
- Difficulties
in excretion unless I take water injection daily.
- Slipped disc
in the back between the second and third vertebrae as the medical
exams had shown. I had a successful disc operation abroad between
the fourth and fifth vertebrae. Now I suffer from acute pain and temporary
paralysis in my left leg.
- The loss of
two teeth and the failure in the gland beneath the lower joint due
to harsh boxing and beating.
- Acute sight
deterioration due to hard and forcible tying on the eyes during the
whole period of arrest.
Dear Sir,
What I experienced
in my confinement at the State Security Headquarters is enough to make
young people age in a little while. My manhood has been abused and that,
I believe, is enough as evidence of the tortures received. I have heard
and read about your fierce defense of human rights in the media and
your absolute rejection of any kind of torture. I feel sad for your
ignorance of the ill practices of your security personnel at the ghost
houses, especially at the house of torture that is situated at the cross-point
between Elqiyada Mosque and the Dinar Street in which I spent 107 hard
days at cells.
I submit this
complaint now because after my transference by a medical committee from
Elfashir to the Military Hospital, I was moved from Shala Prison to
the Kober Priosn earlier last May. When the doctors checked me they
ordered I should be taken to the hospital for x-ray and further medical
attention. First, I met with a general physician and a surgeon under
supervision of Brigadier Dr. Abdelaziz Mohamed Nur who started treating
my headache. I also saw Brigadier Dr. Azam Ibrahim Yousif, a surgeon,
who ascertained after medical checks that my left "ball" was
damaged.
Unfortunately,
at about 11 p.m. by mid June, I was shocked as an in-patient when the
director the Kober prison instructed me inside my room at the hospital
to pack my belongings and move with him to the prison. The director
said he received instructions from the Security Headquarters to transfer
me immediately before midnight to the Suakin Prison. The physician on
duty protested the transfer but the prison authorities moved my forcibly
outside the hospital. An hour later I was moved out of Khartoum. Is
this the kind of rights that you defend, Sir?
I was astonished
why the Security Headquarters interfered in my case even though I am
sentenced to prison and had already spent two years while my fellow
inmates were released a year or more ago despite their lengthy sentences.
What would the Security Forces want from me again after they assaulted
my manhood and misappropriated my belongings? I feel shocked by the
negative reaction of the prison administration and its laws to which
I have been subjected by the highest authority of the State. Why do
they allow this sort of interference in their system of work? Why didn't
they stop this chaos?
Dear Sir, Minister
of Justice,
I am now in the
Suakin Prison. I m having medical treatment at the Port Sudan Hospital
where the physicians ascertained the partial damage of my genitals and
the slipped disc of my back in addition to a continuous headache.
I hereby submit
my complaint to you, after God, to do justice to my case. However, if
you can't or don't, who else would? Previously, you defended with much
suffering and courage a case against which a majority of Sudanese people
negatively reacted. Would you consider my complaint seriously to help
me regain my rights and force the State to cure me abroad on its own
expense? God has laid on you the burden of defending the human rights
of the oppressed for whose sake God said, "We have honored mankind."
I thank God for not laying the same burden on us as He laid on you:
"To Allah we belong, and to Him is our return."
I pray for Allah
that you do not draw on yourself any sin with the wrong doers. I pray
that you do not become responsible for ignoring the injustices of the
transgressor. I pray that you do not become a center of their unfairness
or a bridge of their tremendous trial, or a ladder for their mischief.
Associated with
my letter is a copy of the medical report of the primary physician responsible
for my case, with thanks and appreciation.
Inmate, Brigadier
(re.)
Mohamed Ahmed Elrayah Elfaki.
Copy to:
Head of State
Chief justice
Head of the Human Rights Committee at the Transitional National Council
