Appendix A
Testimony of Mr. Jaafar Al Shikh Ali
Born 1955, Baghdad
Kurdish Iraqi citizen, now resident in Sweden
BSc Honours graduate in Management & Economics, married
Interviewed in Sweden on 8 September 1994
I was taken hostage in February 1983. My family was not deported. At the time I was doing my national service at Kalar Military Base (near the biggest concentration camp in Iraq, used for holding witnesses to the chemical bombing of Halabja and other parts of Iraqi Kurdistan between 1987 and 1989).
I was summoned by superiors and told that I was an Iranian and a risk to the security of the country". Along with 56 others I was taken to the General Security Officers Prison in Baghdad (I was made to pay for my transport!). I was then transferred still in uniform - to Abu Ghraib. There our uniforms and papers were taken from us and we were sent to Cell Block No.8. (I have been able to name and give some details of 27 hostages, some of whom are already known to the Committee, including Ali Hussain Abbas.) We were allowed visits from our families on the 12th of each month. I estimate we were 2,000 in all: Another 750 had been taken away in mid-July 1981 following a hunger strike and visit from Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barazan Al-Tikriti. (He had told the hostages that they were being held only for as long as the Iran/Iraq war lasted and that they would be released as soon as it finished.)
On 5 December 1984 I was taken to Qalat Al Salman in the first of 3 groups, all from Cell Block 8. The journey was made in about 100 police lorries with steel mesh interiors, some of which took 10 prisoners, some 25. Our belongings were taken in tip-up trucks. Relatives who witnessed the departures, and tried to discover our destination, were themselves arrested, taken to Al Ameria, A city near Abu Ghraib, threatened with being made to join the hostages if they did not desist, and then released.
We arrived at 1.30am and were split into groups of between 100 and 200. Our belongings were simply tipped onto the ground. There were no beds and no washing or toilet facilities, and all we had to eat on the first night was canned food and dry bread. The guards were heavily armed and very hostile. ( We later learned that they had been told by Iraqi Interior Minister Saddoon Shakir that we were highly vicious and dangerous Iranian prisoners of war who "ate steel". When they learned who we really were, the guards became much more humane.)
Our whereabouts soon became known to our relatives and visits resumed on the 12th monthly, starting in February 1985. When visiting, our families had first to make their way to Samawa (where the people had been told that the visitors were the relations of Iranian POWs, and treated them accordingly). There followed a three hour journey over unmade roads to Qalat Al Salman. (Between Samawa and Nugrat Al Salman, visitors saw 6 or 7 smaller prison camps.)
On the day after my arrival about 650 hostages from Abu Ghraib Block 7 arrived, and on the following day another 600 from Block 7 annexe. About 5 months later we were joined by inmates from other Iraqi prisons and detention camps and young boys from Baghdad juvenile prison. I estimate that at the end of 1985 Qalat Al Salman held about 3,000 prisoners. Most of the inmates were well educated, and, after the guards had learned our true identities and our relatives had been allowed to bring us food, clothing, books, radios, TVs, medicine etc - we even built our own clinic - conditions became quite tolerable, Indeed, the place was a "holiday camp" compared to the harshness and brutality of Abu Ghraib.
In October 1985, on the orders of Saddam Hussein, teams of security police interrogators (consisting of a sergeant and tow men each), under an officer Haji Mohammed, were brought in to identify who could be released, and to try to recruit them as informers. Starting in that month groups of hostages were put into militia uniforms and taken to unknown destinations.
I was taken in the 6th group with 33 others, none of whose families had been deported, to Al Habanya military airfield for intensive military training. While there we found messages left by previous occupants telling how long they stayed - usually one week - and that some had been taken to a cotton farm at Al Sawera.
After a week's intensive training we were visited by a high-ranking officer who told us, "Now that we have satisfied ourselves that you are genuine Iraqis, I am sure that you are ready to defend your country."
We were then taken to AL Naharwan military barracks, near the bridge at Al Dyala, for a further 25 days' military training, and then to the front line in Al Amara marshes (but we were not given weapons). We learned that other groups had been sent to other barracks near the front.
I remained there for 9 months, then was sent back to Naharwan where I returned my equipment and was given certification of my involvement in the front line and a letter of thanks. I was them returned to the General Security Office in Baghdad from where my relatives were ordered to collect me. I was released in late December 1986, having been given no passport and no papers - only a slip with 2 telephone numbers to be used in case of difficulty. I was ordered to sign in weekly, and was expected to be an informer.
I estimate that of the 3,000 hostages held in Qalat Al Salman about about 600, none of whose families had been deported, were released.