Freed Doctor Describes Torture Ordeal Inside Libyan Jail (Medic scarred; Bulgarian nurses raped)
The Guardian (U.K.) ^ | July 30, 2007 | Kate Connolly
guardian.co.uk
The Palestinian doctor who was held in Libyan custody along with five Bulgarian nurses on charges they infected hundreds of children with HIV, has described in detail how they were tortured during their eight-year ordeal. Ashraf Alhajouj, 38, said he was beaten, held in cages with police dogs and given electric shocks, including to his private parts. He said that he and the nurses were sometimes put together naked in the same room and tortured.
In a harrowing first-person account, published in the latest edition of the German news magazine Der Spiegel following the release of the six last week, Dr Alhajouj described how following his initial arrest in January 1999, along with the nurses, he was taken to a police dog training centre outside Tripoli.
"For the first days I was locked up with three dogs who were ordered to attack me. My leg is full of scars and marks from where they bit me [and] I had a big hole in my knee," he said.
Later, he said, wire cable that had been stripped of its plastic coating, was wound round his penis and he was dragged "screaming and crying" across the floor. He was also given electric shocks with a generator-style machine.
"They put the minus cable on my finger and the plus cable on my ear or my genitals. The most painful thing was their ability to increase the speed of the electricity flow. When I fell unconscious they would throw cold water over my naked body and then begin all over again," he said.
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