'We were thrown to lions'

2005-11-15 08:07

Washington - Two Iraqi businessmen, who were imprisoned by United States forces in Iraq, alleged that American soldiers threw them into a cage of lions in a Baghdad palace as part of a terrifying torture ritual during 2003.

"They took me behind the cage, they were screaming at me, scaring me and beating me a lot," Thahe Mohammed Sabbar told the Associated Press in an interview on Monday. "One of the soldiers would open the door, and two soldiers would push me in. The lions came running toward me and they pulled me out and shut the door. I completely lost consciousness."

Sitting in a Washington hotel room and speaking through an interpreter, Sabbar described the scene, motioning with his hands to show how he was pushed into the cage, then pulled back out just as the lions advanced.

Army spokesperson Paul Boyce said Monday he has never heard of lions being used in any detainee operations and it has never come up in any of the more than 400 investigations into detainee abuse allegations conducted by the military over the past three years.

Still afraid

"We take every allegation of detainee abuse seriously," said Boyce. "But it does seem unusual that this is now coming out for the very first time after three years of investigations."

Sabbar, 37, and Sherzad Kamal Khalid, 35, are in the United States this week to talk about the lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First have filed on their behalf against Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld and other military officials.

The suit, filed in March and transferred to federal court in Washington, details sexual abuse, mock executions, water and food deprivation, electric shock and other torture used on eight detainees including Sabbar and Khalid. It does not mention the lion cage allegation.

"I was very scared," said Khalid. "I felt I was going to suffocate. Every time I screamed and pleaded with them, they would hit me."

They both described standing in front of a lions' cage, and said they could hear other prisoners screaming as the metal cage door creaked opened and slammed closed.

"They threatened that if I did not confess they would put me in the cage," said Khalid, adding that the soldiers kept asking him where Saddam was. "I laughed, I thought they were kidding me. They asked where are the weapons of mass destruction. I was very surprised, and I thought it was weird."

When he laughed, he said, he was beaten more. He said they pushed him into the cage three times, pulling him out as the lions moved toward him.

Both men said they suffer continuing physical and psychological trauma, such as pain, ulcers, nightmares and insomnia, lasting effects of the abuse. Khalid said he was even afraid to be in America now, worried that he could be detained again.

- AP