“The Spectre of Abu Ghraib”, a segment from Rai24, an Italian News Network
Ex-detainee no. 151716 from the âJail of Shame’ speaks
– the man appearing in the photo/symbol of the violence in Abu Ghraib,
the hooded prisoner
with outspread arms connected to electric wires. Forty-two-year-old Ali Shalal
el Kaissi was arrested in October 2003 in Baghdad on the charge of participating
in the guerrilla. He denounced the torture to the Iraqi authorities, but no one
believed him before the photos of the horror were published. Ali, a scholar and
a religion teacher, was a Mokhtar, an authority in one Baghdad district. He was
scheduled to come to Italy to tell his story but the Italian consulate denied
him a visa. We met him in Amman, Jordan, where he founded the Association for
the Victims of American Prisons. At Abu Ghraib, Ali was called Clawman, contemptuous
slang referring to a deep wound on his hand. [click here to watch]