Malaria Kills more than 3000 Children every day in Africa U.S.: Three "Enemy Combatants" Held At Guantanamo Are Under Age 16 IRAQ: UNHCR Plans For Mass Refugee Return; More U.N. Aid Staff Returns As Food Convoys Roll U.S. Floats Security Council Resolution To Lift U.N. Sanctions Quit Iraq, Arab states tell U.S. U.S.: Three "Enemy Combatants" Held At Guantanamo Are Under Age 16 IRAQ: UNICEF Backs Push To Reopen Schools Quickly Iraq: Garner Must Address Human Rights Gulf troops face tests for cancer Egypt: Torture in State Security Headquarters Satcom Industry Focuses on Gitex Saudi 2003 Qatar Foundation implements Oracle E-Business Suite Panasonic introduces Amal Hijazi as the Panasonic brand ambassador in the Middle East

Egypt: Torture in State Security Headquarters

Egypt: Torture in State Security Headquarters
Anti-war Activists Held Illegally Without Charge

(Washington, April 24, 2003) – Seven students, journalists and activists
detained more than ten days ago in connection with antiwar protests have
been subjected to torture and beatings at the Cairo headquarters of
Egypt’s State Security Investigations (SSI), Human Rights Watch charged
today. Five remain in custody but have not been brought before judicial
authorities or allowed to see lawyers or family, in violation of
Egyptian and international law.

An eighth activist, Ashraf Ibrahim, a member of the Popular Committee in
Support of the Palestinian Intifada, has been missing since Saturday,
April 19. Several days earlier, SSI officers raided his home in his
absence and confiscated his computer, video camera and other documents.

“The SSI has a pretty bad record for mistreating political prisoners,
but these reports of torture are especially disturbing,” said Joe Stork,
Washington director of the Middle East and North Africa division of
Human Rights Watch. “The government should investigate and punish those
responsible without delay.”

Stork also called on the authorities to release immediately those still
in custody.

Egyptian security forces apprehended students Amr Muhammad Abd al-Atif,
Mahmoud Hassan Hassan, and Walid Abd al-Razaq Fuad at midday on
Saturday, April 12, as they were about to attend a demonstration at the
Press Syndicate in Cairo. That night, the authorities picked up student
Ramiz Gihad from a café in the Bab al-Luq neighborhood. On Sunday, April
13, journalist Wael Tawfiq disappeared and was later seen in custody at
SSI headquarters. Ibrahim al-Sahari, a journalist for the Egyptian daily
Al-`Alam al-Yom, and activist Marwan Hamdi were taken from their homes
in the early hours of April 14 and taken to an unknown location.

Two of the students, Amr Abd al-Atif and Walid Fuad, were released on
April 15. One told Human Rights Watch that he and the others held at SSI
headquarters had been beaten at the time of arrest and during
interrogation sessions. Describing his beating during interrogation, he
said, “One of them was holding my arm behind my back so I couldn’t
protect myself. One hit me in the groin and testicles, one hit me in the
stomach, one on my chest, and one around the thighs.” The Cairo-based
Nadeem

Center for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence
examined this student and “confirmed testicular congestion, contusions
and bruises in the back muscles and the muscles on the front of the left
thigh.”

This student also described how Cairo University law student Ramiz
Gihad, age 25, was taken out of their cell several times a day:

He stayed a long time upstairs, up to four hours at a time. He was
tortured by electricity as well as beatings. He told us—he didn’t even
have to tell us, though, you could tell by his condition. We saw the
burn marks from the electrocution. He was nearly comatose when they
carried him in [the cell]. His face was extremely swollen and bruised.
He was shaking. There were burn marks on his hand and elbows, and the
feet and toes. He had dry mouth and the police carrying him in ordered
us not to give him any water.

Four of those still in custody are believed to still be held in SSI
headquarters, and al-Sahari is believed to be in Mazra` Tora prison. The
authorities have not charged them with any offense or issued
administrative detention orders, in violation of Egyptian law and
international standards, and have not permitted lawyers or family
members to visit or speak with them.

Al-Sahari had been detained without charge for several weeks and beaten
in February 2003. His wife, Hala Dahrough, told Human Rights Watch that
during the most recent arrest, SSI officers complained that al-Sahari
“has a long tongue” and “talks too much about [President Hosni]
Mubarak,” and that they thought he would have “learned a lesson” from
his February detention.

In late March, the Egyptian authorities arrested an estimated 800
persons in connection with antiwar demonstrations that also included
slogans criticizing Egyptian government policies and President Mubarak.
Human Rights Watch interviewed numerous persons detained at that time
who also said they had been beaten while being apprehended and in police
custody.

“President Mubarak and other high Egyptian officials constantly
proclaim that Egypt is a democracy and committed to the rule of law,”
Stork said. “But what we see instead is an epidemic of state security
violence and arbitrary detention in response to people protesting
officials and their policies

US Soldiers Loot Money from Saddam Palaces

BAGHDAD, April 24 -- When reports came out that hundreds of millions of dollars in cash were left behind in bricked-up buildings inside one of fallen president Saddam Hussein's palace compounds, US officers said, a half-dozen U.S. soldiers had stashed away $12.3 million for themselves. The accused soldiers returned the money after officers shamed them by invoking their fallen comrades. According to Washington Post, these soldiers are now under investigation and face punishments ranging from letters of reprimand to general courts martial, officials said. None has been charged, all are cooperating with investigators and nearly all the money that went missing for several hours last weekend has been recovered, they said.

Col. David G. Perkins, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division brigade to which the accused soldiers belong, said in an interview today that a relatively small amount -- in the "thousands of dollars" -- remained unaccounted for. The soldiers have not yet been disciplined. Their fate, Perkins added, will be decided under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

So far, soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division have found about $780 million in makeshift vaults in the gated complex that was once occupied by senior officials of Hussein's government, armed forces and political party. On Wednesday they discovered a cache of $112 million in a row of dog kennels.

"They actually thought they were going to survive this [U.S. attack] and go back into their vaults," said Lt. Col. Philip D. DeCamp, 40, of Fairfax, commander of the tank battalion that occupies the Republican Palace.

Left in the dog kennels and in what appeared to be relatively modest guesthouses were nearly 200 aluminum boxes, each riveted shut and sealed with green plastic tags marked "Bank of Jordan." Each box contained $4 million in $100 bills and a note signed by five Iraqis attesting to the amount inside. The notes were also marked with the date March 16, apparently when the boxes were sealed, said Lt. Col. Ken Knox, a civil affairs officer from Riverdale, Md.

On the doors of the guesthouses and the locks of the kennels were pieces of tape bearing the signature of Lt. Gen. Mohammad Ibrahim and the date March 20, the same day that U.S. troops crossed the Iraqi border from Kuwait in their drive to remove Hussein from power. DeCamp, commander of the 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment, said that Ibrahim did not appear on his list of the 55 most wanted Iraqi officials and that no other identifying details were known about him.

"I bet he was probably the last guy out of here," said DeCamp, whose regiment is a unit of the 3rd Infantry's 2nd Brigade. The chain of events that led to the alleged theft attempts began Friday when two enlisted men, Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Van Ess and Staff Sgt. Kenneth Buff, discovered the money cache and immediately alerted senior officers.

Soldiers broke through walls of cinderblock and cement that apparently had been hastily erected over the doors and windows of some of the guesthouses. In each room they entered, they found 20 aluminum boxes stuffed with $100,000 in stacks of $100 bills.

Sometime later, five soldiers of the 10th Engineer Battalion, an element of the 2nd Brigade that is attached to DeCamp's Task Force 4-64, broke into a similarly bricked-up house up the road and discovered 50 aluminum boxes. But they reported only 47 of them, officials said.

According to DeCamp and other officers, the soldiers pried open one of the boxes and found it filled with cash. They then carried two of the 80-pound boxes across the road to a moat in front of an elaborate villa and dumped them, unopened, into the water.

The trouble was, DeCamp said, the boxes were each two feet square, and the water was only two feet deep. "So they weren't very hard to find," he noted.

The soldiers grabbed bundles of cash from the opened box and attempted to hide six of them -- totaling $600,000 -- in the trunk of a nearby tree, DeCamp said. An additional $200,000 was stashed in an adjacent wooded area. The soldiers hid the box -- which still contained some of the cache -- near where they were staying.

A soldier who knew about the opened box informed investigators about it. The soldiers involved were questioned, and the cash at all three locations was recovered Friday and Saturday. The informant has been cleared of any involvement in the alleged theft attempt.

In a separate incident, an Army truck driver, a member of the support platoon charged with transporting money to 3rd Infantry Division headquarters at Baghdad's international airport Friday, allegedly stuffed $300,000 of the stash into a cooler. The driver "fessed up immediately" when the missing amount was noticed, and that case was solved "within five minutes," DeCamp said.

The task force commander said officers reminded the soldiers that eight fellow brigade members had been killed and dozens wounded to get the unit to the palace complex they now occupied. To take advantage of that position to "loot Iraq" would dishonor the sacrifices of their fallen comrades, DeCamp said the soldiers were told.

Since the weekend incidents, soldiers have been instructed not to break into any more buildings or pry open any suspected cash boxes, but to secure the area and notify commanders.

"The little treasure hunts got out of hand . . . and we put a lid on them," DeCamp said.

By the time civil affairs soldiers discovered the kennels Wednesday, new procedures were in place, and senior officers were summoned to avoid any question about the find. After one of the seven kennels was opened, Maj. Gen. Buford C. Blount III, the 3rd Infantry Division commander, and Col. John E. Sterling, the division chief of staff, watched Task Force 4-64 soldiers break apart the cinderblock walls covering the entrances to the other six.

Officials have yet to determine what to do with the money. At present, "this money belongs to the U.S. government," and stealing it would be punishable as "theft of U.S. government property," DeCamp said. But according to a Central Command spokesman in Qatar, Lt. Mark Kitchens, "all money found is the property of the Iraqi people." He told the Reuters news agency, "The riches of the nation of Iraq, whether money, oil or art, belong to the people, and we intend to ensure they get it."

Gulf troops face tests for cancer

Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Friday April 25, 2003 The Guardian

Soldiers returning from the Gulf will be offered tests to check levels of depleted uranium in their bodies to assess whether they are in danger of suffering kidney damage and lung cancer as a result of exposure, the Ministry of Defence said last night. The ministry was responding to a warning earlier in the day from the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific body, that soldiers and civilians might be exposed to dangerous levels. It challenged earlier reassurances from the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, that depleted uranium was not a risk. Full Report