Asharq Al Awsat: Former detainee in Tindouf tells of various types of torture in camps
Algeria-Morocco, Politics, 11/6/2003

Abdellah Lamani, who spent 23 years imprisoned by the Polisario in the Tindouf camps (southwestern Algeria), told a daily how the population sequestered in the camps are subjected to various types of torture, inhumane practices and forced labor.

Lamani who was released recently told Saudi daily "Asharq Al Awsat" how the prisoners had to do various works, such as digging trenches and making bricks and were barred from talking to each other.

The former prisoner who narrates his plight in a book titled "terror" also says inmates are held in trenches where they are thrown after being beaten. Only lucky prisoners live in roofless concrete cells, he says, adding that during winter the prisoners are left naked and are beaten until they faint and the only food they have is rice and lentils.

He told Asharq Al Awsat that anyone attempting to flee, he recounts, was killed, as was the case of a Moroccan serviceman whose dead body with a crushed head was left hanging in a tree to serve as an example.

After recalling how the French human rights-advocacy foundation "France-LibertŽs" found out about the atrocities in the camps, after a fact-finding field-trip, he told the Asharq Al Awsat that he wondered how some international organizations and top personalities are keeping silent on practices of extermination, starvation and liquidation going on in the camps.

Previous Stories:
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  King congratulates Algeria for independence day   (11/3/2003)
  Sahara dispute, an issue between Morocco and Algeria, says ambassador   (11/1/2003)

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