Tuesday, December 06, 2005

"I swear by God, I walked by a room and ... saw a grinder with blood coming out of it and human hair underneath," recalled Ahmed Hassan Mohammed of his years in prison....Mr Mohammed, choking back tears, described how all the people between 14 and 70 in Dujail had been arrested and taken to the intelligence headquarters in Baghdad. He said: "There were mass arrests. Women and men. Even if a child was one day old they used to tell his parents, 'bring him with you'." Mr Mohammed, who was 15 at the time, watched as his family and fellow villagers were tortured, often to death. "My brother was given electric shocks while my 77-year-old father watched," he said. "One man was shot in the leg ... some were crippled because they had arms and legs broken." He saw nine bodies heaped in a courtyard." (Ramsey Clark was very amused by this account).