Terror suspect tells of 'torture' that led to death
wish

'Give me an injection and I will be dead' :
After several months of legal action, the Guardian has
won the right to interview foreign nationals being
held without charge on suspicion of terrorist
involvement. Audrey Gillan goes inside Broadmoor high
security hospital and talks to Mahmoud Abu Rideh about
being locked up with no prospect of release and why he
has tried to kill himself

Wednesday May 5, 2004
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1209766,00.html

The effects of the legal limbo in which Mahmoud Abu
Rideh is trapped are visible on his arms. For 22
months, he has been locked up, without charge or
trial, in Broadmoor high security hospital under
controversial anti-terror laws.

The Palestinian has not been told the evidence against
him and does not know when, if ever, he will be
released.

His doctors say that his mental health problems do not
warrant being held at Broadmoor, but the home
secretary refuses to move him to a lower grade
psychiatric hospital. The only alternative on offer is
a return to Belmarsh high security prison, where he
was held with 11 other terror detainees before the
harsh regime took its toll on his mental health. When
he pulls up his shirt sleeves in the visitor room at
Broadmoor, he reveals dozens of scars up and down his
arms, inflicted using pens, plastic and anything else
he can find. Since his detention, he has been
repeatedly harming himself, from drinking toilet
cleaner to setting himself on fire.

"I don't have a criminal record," he told the
Guardian. "I don't touch kids. I don't take drugs. I
don't kill somebody or cut him. This is a hospital for
these kinds of people and they put me here with them.
Belmarsh is a prison well known for the worst kinds of
criminals and the government put me there. I am living
with these kinds of people, what do you expect? Of
course I would go mad."

Mr Abu Rideh is the first of any of the detainees
still in custody to be allowed to speak publicly about
his detention. The Guardian secured the right to speak
to him by taking legal action against David Blunkett,
the home secretary, who had refused our request for
access to the detainees. The high court ruled that the
men should be entitled to give interviews.

The child visit centre at Broadmoor high security
hospital is packed for the occasion. Arranged around
the circle of upholstered armchairs are the Guardian,
Mr Abu Rideh, a nurse, the hospital's public relations
person and two people from the Home Office, armed with
a tape recorder, whose job is to ensure that national
security is not contravened.

A pile of papers sits on the carpeted floor of the
small room. Mr Abu Rideh has been waiting a long time
for this chance to speak and he has prepared for it in
detail, his Arabic scrawled over sheets and sheets of
A4, dozens of photographs scattered at his feet.

He denies that he has any links to al-Qaida, insisting
that the allegations against him are "lies".

"The security services came into my home and they
didn't find anything, they didn't find a bomb, they
didn't find anthrax," he said. "It's very easy to say
someone has done something if you don't give the
evidence. Someone who can lie to the whole nation
about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq can lie
about me."

He was arrested at his home in Surrey on December 17
2001, accused of being "an active supporter of various
international terrorist groups, including those with
links to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network", with
activities including fundraising.

Judges at the Special Immigration Appeals Tribunal -
hearing the vast majority of evidence in secret -
upheld Mr Blunkett's decision to detain Mr Abu Rideh,
although they have said he should be moved to a low
security hospital rather than Broadmoor. They said
that the £100,000 that had passed through the bank
account of his charity, the Islamic Services Bureau,
since 1999 was "reasonable" grounds for suspicion.

Mr Blunkett justifies all the detentions of foreign
terror suspects by pointing out that each of the men
held is free to leave the UK and return home. But as a
Palestinian refugee Mr Abu Rideh is stateless. "Where
can I go, please?" He said his state of mind had
deteriorated to the point where he would prefer to be
executed. "I have been sick before I came here, but I
am very sick now," he said.

"I hear voices. I put my radio off and the radio is
still talking. It says you will stay in this hospital
all your life. The hospital don't want me here. The
Home Office don't want me to go back to prison. Give
me an injection and I will be dead and they won't need
to spend £140,000 a year on me being in this
hospital."

He says all his fundraising work was for charity. "I
have given the Home Office and MI5 everything. I
worked for orphans, for schools, I told them I am not
a terrorist." Showing pictures of water wells,
schoolrooms full of children, orphanages, sewing
machines for widows, sackloads of flour, drums of
cooking oil, he said that his charity's aim was to
help people in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Bosnia and other
countries.

"I worked with charity and helped people. People gave
me money at the mosques. I did all my telephone calls
from my home and from my mobile phone. I knew I was
tapped but I had nothing to hide. MI5 and MI6 never
came to meet me. They never asked me questions, they
never said to me you are crossing the line, you have
gone to talk to a terrorist. They just arrested me
after September 11. I don't have any secrets."

The government claims Mr Abu Rideh fought with the
mojahedin in the war against the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, but he says the first time he went to
Afghanistan was in 2000 with his charity. "I open a
school in Afghanistan for Arabic children in Kabul,
not in Kandahar where Bin Laden was," he said. "These
children are refugees, they have problems with their
government. Some of these people were fighting Bin
Laden. I opened a school. I wasn't arrested in
Afghanistan or Pakistan."

He is also accused of associating with Abu Hamza, the
controversial cleric whose sermons at Finsbury Park
mosque in north London were attended by the shoe
bomber Richard Reid and the 20th September 11
hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui.

"Lots of countries are trying to extradite Abu Hamza,
like Yemen. My name does not come up in any country in
connection with Abu Hamza. He was in charge of
Finsbury Park mosque and I would go there for money
for the orphans. I would talk to him about that but I
didn't attend his sermons. I knew he was being
recorded and I never hid anything."

His treatment in Broadmoor is worse, he claims, than
anything he experienced during the five years he was
held in an Israeli jail after throwing stones at
soldiers during the first intifada, where he claims he
was tortured.

Mr Abu Rideh was being treated for mental health
problems before his detention and was diagnosed as
suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. He was
treated as an outpatient after being recommended to a
specialist hospital by the Medical Foundation for the
Treatment of Victims of Torture.

He has made a number of complaints to the hospital
about racism among staff. In his interview, he made
further complaints, alleging that a staff member had
called him a "fucking terrorist" and that another
forced him to kiss his shoe and say he was his slave.
He claimed that another spat in his sandwich.

Mr Abu Rideh claimed he had also been assaulted on a
number of occasions by other patients and that staff
"egg them on".

Now he harms himself, he says, out of frustration when
people are racist or when he goes into a "dark time"
experiencing flashbacks of his torture. "I drink
shampoo, I drink air freshener, I drink toilet
cleaner," he said. "Every week I try something. It's
better than being here. The staff don't want me here.
They hit me and the patients hit me. What I have been
through in this place is worse than when I was
detained in Israel when I was tortured. They have
destroyed me."

Last night, a spokesman for Broadmoor said that Mr Abu
Rideh had made 10 formal complaints involving 26
incidents, two of which had been upheld.

One matter, which involved him complaining that a
staff member had bruised his shoulder, was being
investigated by police. Another incident where he
attempted to set fire to himself and allegedly
assaulted a member of staff in the ensuing fracas,
leaving her with three broken ribs, was also in the
hands of the police. No complaints had been received
about the sandwich allegation or the terrorist
name-calling but they would now be investigated.

Doctors who have seen him are divided in their opinion
as to whether he is mentally ill under the terms of
the Mental Health Act. Andy Payne, his consultant at
Broadmoor, has said that "while he does have some
symptoms of a depressive disorder and a generalised
anxiety disorder with some post-traumatic symptoms, he
is not now suffering from mental illness of a nature
or degree which would warrant his detention under the
Mental Health Act or his treatment in a psychiatric
hospital".

This was taken into account in January at a mental
health tribunal but it ruled he was mentally ill and
that there was no choice but to detain him in a
psychiatric hospital because his "mental and physical
health would rapidly and seriously deteriorate" if he
was returned to Belmarsh.

In a statement, the Home Office said there was reason
to suspect that Mr Abu Rideh was an international
terrorist, with links to al-Qaida.

"Broadmoor is an appropriate setting for Mr Abu Rideh,
taking into account his clinical needs and the risk he
presents to the public," the statement continued. "We
would point to the decision of the mental health
review tribunal which said that he does require
treatment in hospital. He is detained in a high
security hospital because he is a risk to national
security."

Two weeks ago another detainee, known only as G, was
released from Belmarsh and placed under house arrest
because he had become so mentally ill in custody. Mr
Blunkett fought to prevent his release and denounced
it as "extraordinary" and "bonkers", promising to
change the law to prevent it happening again.

But Mr Abu Rideh said house arrest was not an option
for him. "I need treatment. I can't go out. Maybe I
will harm myself. Maybe the voices will come. I fear
for my kids. I want treatment but my treatment is not
to be in Broadmoor hospital." He has a glossy brochure
for a low security hospital and he dreams of moving
there.

His two-hour chance to talk, to tell his side of the
story, is over. An officer will take him back to the
ward from where there seems to be no chance of
release.

"My children are orphans, my wife does not have a
husband," he said. "I would stop any bomb. I would put
my body in front of it to stop it happening to this
country. I was sacrificed because of terrorism. I am
not a terrorist. I don't believe in terrorism. Why
don't they just charge me?"







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