[Ppnews] Britain's Guantánamo

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/worthington09012007.html

September 1 / 2, 2007


The Tale of Tunisian Belmarsh Detainee Hedi 
Boudhiba, Extradited, Cleared and Abandoned in Spain


Britain's Guantánamo

By ANDY WORTHINGTON

The story of Hedi Boudhiba, a 46-year old 
Tunisian, who has been abandoned in Spain after 
being extradited from the UK and cleared of all 
charges against him in the Spanish National 
Court, calls into doubt the quality of British 
and pan-European intelligence about activities 
related to terrorism, and also raises 
uncomfortable questions about the apparent 
absence of human rights safeguards in the 
"fast-track" extradition agreements for terror 
suspects that have been negotiated between 
various countries in the European Union.

A refugee, who fled persecution in the country of 
his birth, where he was tortured, and where the 
dictatorship presided over by Zine El Abidine Ben 
Ali has long waged a dirty campaign of 
intimidation, imprisonment and torture against 
even moderate political and religious opponents, 
Boudhiba was arrested at Liverpool's John Lennon 
Airport, en route to Barcelona, on 20 August 
2004. Held for 20 months in the notorious 
Belmarsh prison in south-east London, which 
gained a reputation as Britain's own Guantánamo, 
because of the number of Muslim terror suspects 
held there without charge or trial, he suffered 
from psychosis and depression, and on one 
occasion attempted to commit suicide by slashing 
his throat and forearm. Speaking at the time, 
Boudhiba said, "Here I am tortured mentally and I 
suffer every day and I can't find help from 
anyone. When I'm ill they don't send me to hospital."

While in Belmarsh, Boudhiba was interviewed not 
only by British intelligence agents, but also by 
representatives of the American, Portuguese and 
German authorities. Despite allegations that he 
was part of a terrorist network linked to 9/11, 
that he was involved in providing funding for 
fighters in Iraq, and that he was also involved 
in the now-discredited ricin plot in Britain, the 
British, American, Portuguese and German 
authorities all declined to either prosecute him 
or seek his extradition, but he became ensnared 
by the rules of the new, "fast-track" European 
Arrest Warrant--which eases the extradition of 
suspects between EU countries--after the Spanish 
authorities also turned up to interview him, and he refused to speak to them.

His lawyer, Julian Hayes, explained that, having 
previously spoken to representatives of the four 
countries mentioned above, Boudhiba said, "well, 
I've spoken to all these other authorities, you 
can see what I've said to them and I don't 
frankly want to speak to you about it," and added 
that, as a result, "one has to question the 
validity of that particular warrant." Questioned 
for the BBC by Gerry Northam, who asked, "Are you 
saying that you suspect the Spanish are on a 
fishing trip and they just want to pull him in 
too see what he knows?" Hayes replied, "That is 
the suspicion," and countered Northam's follow-up 
question, "Well, why not let them fish?" by 
pointing out that "there's been a free flow of 
information between these authorities and the 
Spanish can easily obtain that information."

Despite assurances that the "fast-track" 
extradition programme would live up to its name, 
it took 20 months until Boudhiba was extradited 
to Spain. When he lost an appeal in the High 
Court in April 2006, Julian Hayes again 
complained, pointing out, "We have no guarantees 
given to us by the Spanish authorities that he 
would be allowed to stay in their country," and 
adding that Boudhiba ran the risk of being 
returned to Tunisia, "where at the very least 
he'll be tortured and at the very worst he'll be killed."

Speaking at the time, Boudhiba reinforced his 
lawyer's complaints, saying, "They want to 
extradite me to Spain, as they could not find 
anything against me. The Spanish police could 
send me to Tunisia, and once I arrive in Tunisia, 
they can torture me and do to me whatever they 
like." Denying the allegations against him, he 
added, "I swear, I have done nothing bad to 
anyone. I am not a terrorist. They want to accuse 
me no matter what, I can't understand why. Is it 
because I am a Muslim or because I knew some 
people, and they have suspicions against these 
people? This isn't justice. This is not a war 
against terrorists; this is a war against Muslims."

Once in Spanish custody, where, as CBS News 
reported in January 2005, the Spanish anti-terror 
judge Baltasar Garzon claimed that he had 
travelled from Hamburg to Istanbul a week before 
9/11 with a member of the Hamburg cell run by 
lead hijacker Mohammed Atta, Boudhiba effectively 
disappeared off the radar, only to resurface a 
few days ago, when Marianne Kremer, a human 
rights activist in Luxembourg, who is in contact 
with him, emailed me to request assistance.

Kremer reported that, after being held for 15 
months in Spain, where he was unable to contact 
his family and was, on one occasion, set upon by 
another prisoner who bit off part of his nose 
(after which the authorities promised him plastic 
surgery, but failed to do so), Boudhiba was 
acquitted in July of all the charges against him 
in the Audiencia Nacional (Spain's National 
Court), but was then "simply released from prison 
near Madrid with no money, no place to stay, and 
no passport." She explained that Boudhiba's 
passport is still held at the Audiencia Nacional 
(and that everyone there is on vacation). As a 
result, despite being cleared, he has been 
reduced to something akin to a "ghost" presence 
in Spain, having not yet received an "official 
written verdict" from the trial, and is unable 
even to receive donations because the court still holds his passport.

While this seems to me to be a rather shocking 
indictment of the ways in which the European 
Arrest Warrant has facilitated the movement of 
unwanted refugees around Europe without any 
oversight regarding the justice of their 
treatment, Kremer added a more worrying 
postscript, noting that Boudhiba remains 
terrified that the Spanish authorities, with the 
collusion of the British government, will attempt 
to return him to Tunisia. She reports that, 
during his extradition trial in the UK, "the 
Spanish Prosecutor Pedro Rubira signed a document 
stating that the Spanish cannot deport Hedi to a 
third country without the consent of the UK authorities."

Although the BBC reported in October 2005 that 
Home Office minister Andy Burnham, citing 
Boudhiba's case, pledged that extradited suspects 
would "remain absolutely protected from the death 
penalty or torture," and that the British 
government "would not permit anyone it had 
surrendered to another European state to be sent 
on to a country which violated these human 
rights," recent cases make it clear that, despite 
these apparent assurances, the British government 
is at the forefront of attempts to return 
unwanted refugees to countries where they face 
the risk of torture or death, having signed 
worthless "memoranda of understanding" with 
Jordan and Libya, allegedly guaranteeing the 
"humane" treatment of returned suspects, and 
having entered a similar agreement with the Algerian government.

In April and July, attempts by the UK government 
to return two Libyans and three Algerians--held 
without charge or trial in the UK--were turned 
down by the Special Immigrations Appeal Court 
(SIAC) and by appeal court judges, who ruled that 
all five faced the risk of torture, but the 
United States, another partner in this concerted 
effort to bypass international safeguards 
preventing the return of inconvenient individuals 
to countries where they face torture, recently 
opened a new front in this unprincipled 
diplomatic game by entering into a similar agreement with Tunisia.

In June, two Tunisian detainees in Guantánamo, 
Abdullah bin Omar and Lofti Lagha--cleared for 
release by a military review board, which had 
concluded that they no longer represented a 
threat to the United States and no longer had any 
intelligence value--were returned to the country 
of their birth, where they were promptly 
imprisoned, and where, according to human rights 
observers, bin Omar "has already been tortured, 
and has been told that if he does not confess 
falsely to crimes, his wife and daughters will be raped."

As he paces the streets of Madrid, awaiting the 
return of his passport, Hedi Boudhiba--finally 
liberated after three years of imprisonment based 
on "evidence" obtained through hearsay or torture 
that has evaporated like a mirage --must be 
hoping that his persecution is now at an end, and 
that he, unlike Abdullah bin Omar, is not 
destined to become what bin Omar's lawyer, 
Zachary Katznelson of the London-based legal 
charity Reprieve, described as "a guinea pig in a 
potentially deadly diplomatic experiment."

Andy Worthington 
(<http://www.counterpunch.org/http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/>www.andyworthington.co.uk) 
is a British historian, and the author of 
'<http://www.counterpunch.org/http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745326641/counterpunchmaga>The 
Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 
Detainees in America's Illegal Prison' (to be 
published by Pluto Press in October 2007).
He can be reached at: 
<http://www.counterpunch.org/mailto:andy@andyworthington.co.uk>andy at andyworthington.co.uk




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