They tortured us in Ethiopian ‘Guantanamo’: Freed Kenyans

A group of Kenyans have revealed how they were tortured when held as terrorist suspects in an Ethiopian jail.

In interviews with journalists on Saturday, the men said that for two long years they lay in their cells with their hands bound tightly behind their backs.

They were bound tightly hand and foot when being dragged from their cells to be interrogated, often by American intelligence agents and people from Israel’s anti-terrorism unit.

And they were regularly beaten — often just for asking for water.

Ethiopian soldiers who guarded them in the jail, in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, hit them brutally on the hands, legs and back, they said.

The men said they were seldom allowed out of their cells, and were refused permission to send or receive letters to their loved ones.

Reunited

Emotions ran high as the men recounted their ordeal after being reunited yesterday with their families, relatives and friends.

They were brought back to Kenya after police and immigration officials confirmed their identities as Kenyans.

They had been taken to Ethiopia after trying to return to Kenya at the border with Somalia.

Because, they said, they feared arrest, they had denied being Kenyan and so were sent back to Somalia, and then passed on to the Ethiopians who had defeated the Islamic Courts Union which had been fighting the legitimate transitional Government of Somalia.

The Kenyans had originally gone to Somalia in 2006, according to the Kenya Government, to fight with the various militias trying to overturn the transitional Government.

The eight were flown from Ethiopia to Voi, arriving last night. They were then escorted to rejoin their families.

Those who spoke to the Sunday Nation on Saturday said the eight prisoners who had been returned were kept with 12 others of different nationalities in one cell measuring 20 feet by 15.

They said Ethiopian military personnel had tortured them.