An Australian terrorism suspect soon to be repatriated by US authorities after three years at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba was the victim of atrocities fit for a concentration camp, his lawyer claimed in reports yesterday.
Stephen Hopper, in comments reported yesterday in the Sydney Morning Herald, alleged that Mamdouh Habib was tied to the ground while a naked prostitute menstruated on him.
Hopper also claimed that interrogators told the Egyptian-born Sydney resident that they had killed his wife and three children.
"The Americans used prostitutes as tools in their interrogations," Hopper said.
Habib was arrested in October 2001 in Pakistan and accused of aiding Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Attorney General Philip Ruddock said earlier this month that Habib would be released by US authorities and would not be charged under Australian law on his return.
He would escape prosecution because anti-terrorism legislation did not come into force until 2002 and could not be applied retrospectively.
"Mr. Habib remains of interest in a security context because of his former associations and activities," Ruddock said.
The release of Habib would leave one Australian at Guantanamo Bay.
David Hicks, 29, is one of only four detainees to be charged and to have faced court. He is on trial before a US military tribunal for terrorism offenses. He will not get a death sentence and would serve his jail term in Australia if found guilty.
Hicks was captured in November 2001 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, fighting with the Taliban and has been inside the Guantanamo Bay prison since then.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers on Monday said that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That is essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. “As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,” the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast might be moot
RSS