Then he opens his hands and proffers his wrists. “Can you see those
marks too? That was when I was tortured by British police – when they
pulled the handcuffs up my arm so tight that I screamed. And then they
punched me all over my face before holding my neck so hard that I could
no longer breathe. I really thought I was going to die.”
Ahmad’s ordeal began in 2003, when his house was raided by the Met’s
elite counter-terrorism squad. He was then extradited to the US, where
he was convicted of providing material support to the Taliban. Last year
he was finally released from prison to an emotional reunion with his
family and thousands of supporters in south London.
The story of Babar Ahmad is the story of the west’s war on terror, a
war that has been waged against those who bore arms in the name of
Islam. It’s also the story of America’s desire for revenge in the wake
of 9/11. And a story of how Britain blindly conspired with its ally to
send Ahmad to the United States, despite knowing that there was no
evidence to try him for the same crimes in the UK.
After nearly 12 years’ imprisonment, torture and inhumane privations, Ahmad is unbroken, without bitterness and determined that his story will not be forgotten or dismissed as just the bleatings of another victim of the war on terror.
Officers broke down Ahmad’s front door and charged into his bedroom, where he was sleeping with his wife.
Ahmad was subjected to a 40-minute ordeal of physical, sexual, religious and verbal abuse.
“They twisted the handcuffs until I cried out in pain. Two of the
officers punched me repeatedly on the head, face, ears and back. On two
occasions the officers sexually abused me by tugging at and fondling my
genitals. And then the officers stamped on my bare feet with their
boots.”
The officers mocked Ahmad’s religious beliefs. After placing him in
the Muslim prayer position, one officer sarcastically asked: “Where is
your God now?”
He was bundled into a police van, where he faced further abuse during
his journey to Charing Cross police station. “An officer, whom I later
found out was PC Mark Jones, punched me repeatedly, and another, PC Jon
Donohue, twisted the cuffs until I screamed out in pain. Jones then
applied two choke holds. During the second choke hold I thought I was
going to die. To this day I still recall Jones saying: ‘You will
remember this day for the rest of your life. Do you understand me, you
fucking bastard?’”
CCTV shows Babar Ahmad in a collapsed state as he was pulled out of
the van and taken to the custody suite at Charing Cross police station.
In the court case that Ahmad brought against the Met in 2009, the
custody sergeant, Thomas Martin, described Ahmad’s handcuff injuries as
the worst he had ever seen in 30 years as a police officer.
Doctors who examined Ahmad over the next seven days found that he had
at least 73 injuries, including bleeding in his ears and urine. The
injuries were recorded graphically by a Met photographer. US prosecutors
tampered with one of these photographs to remove any sign of injury
when they brought their case against Ahmad in a court in Connecticut.
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The trials of Babar Ahmad: from jihad in Bosnia to a US ...
In
his first interview since he tasted freedom after 12 years behind bars,
Ahmad tells how he became the longest-serving UK prisoner to be
detained withou...
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