May 6, 2004
Ex-Detainee Tells of Anguishing Treatment at Iraq Prison
Washington Post

Lazim, 34, was prisoner No. 15227, according to his release papers. He said he was one of the hooded men in the photographs taken inside an Abu Ghraib cellblock that have generated worldwide revulsion.

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 6, 2004; Page A18

BAGHDAD, May 5 -- Hasham Mohsen Lazim traded used tires for a living in the Shiite slum of Sadr City. He had been in trouble only once in his life, he said, a desperate time six years ago when he deserted Saddam Hussein's army to support his wife and four small children.

Then on one warm night in August, a taxi ride home ended in a U.S. Army holding cell, the first stop in what he described as a hellish four-month journey through the U.S. military prison system in Iraq. His experience veered between anguish and confusion, abuse and fury, before culminating in a series of pictures, broadcast worldwide in recent days, that memorialized his 24-day stay in the grimmest precincts of Abu Ghraib prison.

"Something awful happened to me," Lazim said during a two-hour interview broken by long pauses of silent despair. "I will never forget it until the day I die."

Lazim, 34, was prisoner No. 15227, according to his release papers. He said he was one of the hooded men in the photographs taken inside an Abu Ghraib cellblock that have generated worldwide revulsion. Although his identity could not be confirmed from the photographs, his account was supported by a friend from the prison, Hayder Sabbar Abd, who said he experienced the same treatment and could identify both himself and American guards from the photos. Lazim's papers show that he was in Abu Ghraib when the abuses occurred late last year.

Now, months later, Lazim has completed a course in Jordan to become an officer in the new U.S.-sponsored Iraqi police force. His uniform hangs at home as he awaits orders for where to report. He will be joining a force the U.S. occupation authority is counting on to help stabilize the country.

Lazim said he was arrested last August after a taxi, in which he and a neighbor were riding, broke down on Canal Street in Baghdad, just a few blocks from the off-ramp that would have taken them home. U.S. soldiers approached and searched the taxi. In the trunk, they discovered a pistol and other weapons that Lazim said he could not see.

Soldiers placed hoods and handcuffs on the men, then took them to a former cigarette factory being used as a military base. When asked by a U.S. soldier -- through an interpreter with Syrian-accented Arabic -- who owned the guns, the taxi driver acknowledged that they were his, Lazim said. He said he was expecting a speedy release.

Still hooded, Lazim was then inspected by the U.S. soldier, who opened Lazim's shirt and examined his arms. Lazim said the soldier was looking for the telltale tattoo of an eagle worn by members of Saddam's Fedayeen, a militia loyal to Hussein. He found instead a tattoo that said: "I Love You Mom." But Lazim said the soldier kept asking him: "Why were you trying to shoot Americans?"

"I said I wasn't, that the taxi driver had already said the guns were his," Lazim said. "And no one was shooting at Americans. At the time, we liked them."

That night, he said, he slept outside in a long, narrow cage. The night was warm, and he used a filthy blanket to keep away a slight predawn chill. At 6 a.m., he was awakened, hooded and driven to Baghdad International Airport for more questioning.

There he said he was placed among 60 people in a hangar with a peaked metal roof. The prisoners, among them a former high official of Hussein's Baath Party government, were standing in line to be questioned by 10 interrogators.

"They asked me if I knew where Saddam was, where chemical weapons were, or if I knew any Baathists," he said. "I told them I knew a Baathist, and I gave them his name and address."

The man had reported Lazim as a deserter six years earlier, sending him to prison for a year. He had fled after the end of the war.

For the next 28 days, Lazim said, he slept among 120 other prisoners in a large tent designed to hold a third that number. He said the food -- Army-issue MREs, or meals ready-to-eat -- was sufficient and the bedding was fine. He was questioned only once more, briefly and on the same subjects.

"I was going crazy," he said. The "worst part of it all" was not being able to contact his wife of nine years, Amel.

"My brother is a translator for the Americans and even he was not allowed to see me," he said.

Lazim was transferred to a tent complex in Abu Ghraib. But after a fight involving the burly inmate whom the U.S. guards had made the "mayor" of Lazim's area, Lazim was named as one of the assailants. He said he was forced face-down in the dirt, handcuffed and hauled by truck to a cellblock on the other side of the complex. Cell 16 was his new home.

Lazim said the worst abuse by U.S. guards occurred during his first three hours in the new cellblock, where he was gathered with other detainees. He said the intense torment was not repeated during the balance of his imprisonment.

He said the abuse began when a guard grabbed his neck and cuffed his hands. Screaming, the guard ran Lazim, who was hooded, toward the end of the hallway, where he would slam into the wall, Lazim said. Then, Lazim said, he was spun around and made to do it again. This lasted 20 minutes, he said.

"At that moment, I changed my feelings toward the Americans," Lazim said.

Lazim said that moments later, a guard grabbed the collar of his blue prison coveralls. A knife blade split the jumpsuit from his neck down to his thighs, he said.

"I heard the others screaming in a horrible way," he said. "I thought, 'Are they being cut to pieces?' "

Like the others, Lazim said, he was kicked and punched severely for several minutes. Already Lazim was worrying about his impending nudity. He said he thought to himself that even if the coveralls were ripped off, he'd still be in his underwear. Women were in the room. He'd heard their laughter.

"Then they cut my underwear off," he said. Only his hood remained.

He said he sensed the guards around him, then felt the tip of a felt marker running over his body. They were writing on him, words and doodles. Soon he was covered in ink. Next the prisoners were asked to stand. A few minutes later, he said, his hood was briefly lifted and what he saw stunned him.

"I saw one prisoner standing up, and another in a hood kneeling down with his head near his penis," Lazim said. The guards had assembled the prisoners in a semicircle, Lazim said, and appeared to be moving from one detainee to the next, allowing each a glimpse of the scene. In the background, Lazim said, he saw a female guard snapping pictures.

For three hours, Lazim said, the men were made to masturbate against a wall, crawl on top of one another to form a pyramid and ride each other "as if we were riding a donkey."

"I felt so happy when I returned to my cell because I thought, 'Now at least they will kill me,' " Lazim said.

For two days, he said, he was left without clothes and he used the hood to cover his genitals. No talking was permitted. At one point he grew frightened that the others might be dead, so he called out to a friend.

"Ahmed, are you all right?" he recalled shouting. The reply came: "I am, Hasham."

Examining photographs of abused prisoners that have been made public, Lazim said he recognized Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., a member of the 372nd Military Police Company and one of six soldiers charged with abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Lazim said he would come to know Graner as the soldier who delivered his food over the next three weeks.

Lazim said that after he was abused by the guards, Graner handcuffed him to the corner of his bed. He was left that way for several days.

"We couldn't sleep or stand," he said. "Even to urinate, we had to do so where we sat."

After 24 days, he was returned to the tents. Five days after that, in early December, he walked out of Abu Ghraib. The taxi driver and his friend are still inside, he said.

"I told no one what had happened to me, not even my mother," Lazim said.

He was asked why he would now join the U.S.-sponsored Iraqi police force.

"I want to do it because I will never hold an innocent man," he said. "I wanted to make sure it wouldn't happen again to someone else."

Last week, Lazim was riding in a car with friends when the radio news described a series of pictures appearing on international television channels that depicted startling scenes from Abu Ghraib. The words jolted him, although he said nothing.

"At first I felt happy that now everyone knew about this," Lazim said. "But I also feel my life is destroyed."



© 2004 The Washington Post Company

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. GlobalIssues.Net distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107.