Tuesday December 8, 2015
By John Marzulli
Accused British terror suspect Madhi Hashi, and co-defendants Ali Yasin Ahmed and Mohammed Yusuf, are charged with providing support to Al Shabab.
Three militants, who face 15 years in prison for providing material support to the al-Shabaab terrorist organization, are seeking significantly lesser sentences because they were tortured by East African jailers before being turned over to U.S. authorities, according to papers filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.Ali Yasin Ahmed, Madhi Hashi, and Mohamed Yusuf were captured in Djibouti, East Africa, in 2012 after crossing the border of Somalia where they had participated in civil war fighting against Ethiopian invaders of their homeland.
They were taken, blindfolded, to a secret prison and held for three months under horrific conditions. Ahmed described "a hell I thought I would never experience on earth" in a letter to Federal Judge John Gleeson."I was placed in a small, unbearably hot cell, which I shared with five other men," he states. "We were forced to sleep on the floor…I wore the same soiled t-shirt and underpants for the duration of my captivity.
"They threatened to take away my manhood. They blindfolded me, slapped me, punched me, kicked me, and beat me with computer cables.
"At one point the computer cables were wrapped around my legs and I was hung upside down from the back of a door."
Ahmed claims he witnessed the beatings of other prisons including one who was raped with a two-liter soda bottle.
Yusuf contends he, too was tortured, and Hashi says he was threatened with rape by the sadistic jailers. The torture "abated" after unidentified U.S. law enforcement agents presented themselves at the prison and questioned the men about potential threats to the U.S. and its allies in the region.
"All told, Mr. Ahmed spent 103 days in Djiboutian custody under brutal and torturous conditions that no human being should have to endure," his lawyer Susan Kellman said.
Ahmed, 30, also wrote that since he was transferred to federal lockups in Manhattan and Brooklyn, he has been subjected to "a different form of torture," nearly total isolation under restrictions ordered by the U.S. attorney general.
Defense lawyers are seeking a more significant reduction than the three-month deduction from a 15-year-term recommended by U.S. Probation officials.
Federal prosecutors have not publicly acknowledged or confirmed the torture allegations, but did agree not to use any statements made by the trio to law enforcement agents in Djibouti had they not pleaded guilty to the charges and gone to trial instead.