March
7, 2008
Guantanamo
Detainee Loses Court Case
By Rohan Sullivan, The Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — A judge ruled Friday that claims
by a former Guantanamo Bay inmate that he was tortured could not
be fully believed because his testimony was inconsistent and may
have been exaggerated to try to help him win a defamation lawsuit.
But Mamdouh Habib almost certainly was mistreated during his three
years of detention without trial in four countries after being
arrested in Pakistan in late 2001, during which he suffered extreme
stress and trauma, the judge found.
The findings came in a judgment in Habib's case against Sydney's
The Daily Telegraph newspaper in which he claimed that the paper
defamed him by implying he lied about being tortured.
A jury in 2006 found in Habib's favor, but the paper's publisher,
Rupert Murdoch's Nationwide News Pty. Ltd., sought to knock down
the case by proving that there was some truth to its article.
On Friday, Justice Peter McClellan of the New South Wales state
Supreme Court upheld News' case, and ruled Habib would get no
payout. Habib vowed to appeal.
Habib, an Egyptian-born Muslim immigrant, was arrested in late
2001 in Pakistan, where he says he was held for 28 days and interrogated
by Americans before he was transferred to Egypt, then six months
later to the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan and then
to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Habib told the court he had been beaten and electrocuted by his
captors while he was in Pakistan and Egypt, kept drugged and shackled,
had his fingers broken, and was sexually molested.
He claimed that Australian officials were present during parts
of his ordeal.
Habib said that while at Guantanamo he was regularly beaten before
interrogation sessions, kept shackled and often naked, and had
his cell sprayed with pepper spray.
In his ruling, McClellan said he could not accept a lot of Habib's
evidence because it was inconsistent with previous statements
he had made. The judge also found Habib was "prone to exaggerate,"
and "evasive" when pressed on details.
"I have no difficulty in accepting that the experiences which
Mr. Habib suffered were traumatic" and were an "extraordinarily
stressful experience," McClellan said.
"I also have little doubt that from time to time he was mistreated,"
he said, citing electric shocks, kicks and the use of hot and
cold water as included in the likely abuse.
"However, the evidence he gave was disjointed and on many
occasions he failed to respond to a question," the judge
said. "I have ultimately concluded that I cannot accept the
allegations of mistreatment in the detail which he gave the evidence
in this court."
"That does not mean that I have concluded that these events
did not happen but merely that I cannot be satisfied that they
did happen," he said.
Habib was returned to Australia in January 2005, one of just two
Australians to have been jailed at Guantanamo. The other, David
Hicks, was released last year after serving a sentence for supporting
terrorism that was struck in a plea deal.
No charges were ever filed against Habib, and the Australian government
says he has committed no crime under Australian law, though it
canceled his passport and says it still considers him to be a
security threat.
Habib has made torture allegations in numerous media interviews
and in his defamation case. He has also given inconsistent and
confusing explanations about why he traveled to Afghanistan and
Pakistan in the months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in
the United States. The Telegraph article was an opinion piece
on his claims.
Outside the court on Friday, Habib said he would continue to fight
the case "to the last drop of blood."
"I spent half my life in Guantanamo Bay, the rest I'm going
to spend in an Australian court house," he said. "I
want to get justice, that's what I'm after."
Habib is also suing the federal government for compensation, arguing
the government failed to uphold his rights as a citizen during
his detention. It was not immediately clear what effect Friday's
ruling would have on the compensation case, which is under way
in a different court.
Copyright
2008. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
