November 4, 2005

The star witness in the trial of US troops for prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan has mysteriously disappeared. Omar al-Farouq would have been the first detainee to testify against an American soldier.

The US regime previously claimed that Omar al-Farouq was a "top al-Qaeda operative" and "one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants", but now they claim that he was somehow able to escape. The only evidence of his escape is an anonymous "leak" to the mass media, as usual from an "unnamed" US official.

Three other witnesses are said to have "escaped" at the same time, so the only four people ever to succeed in an "escape" from a Guantanamo-bay-style maximum secitity US military prison all happen to be witnesses who wanted to testify against the US military.

There is sufficient anecdotal evidence here to justify asking the question: is the US military willing to eliminate people who threaten their position in occupied countries? Yet there is no hint of this obvious question in the western media. As previous examples demonstrate, the mass media would not be so restrained if the same incident happened in an enemy state.


SOURCE

Washington Post, "Pentagon: Top al-Qaida Operative Escaped", 1 November 2005.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11
/01/AR2005110101423.html
FORT BLISS, Texas -- A man once considered a top al-Qaida operative escaped from a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan and cannot testify against the soldier who allegedly mistreated him, a defense lawyer involved in a prison abuse case said Tuesday.
Omar al-Farouq was one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants in Southeast Asia until Indonesian authorities captured him in the summer of 2002 and turned him over to the United States.
A Pentagon official in Washington confirmed Tuesday evening that al-Farouq escaped from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan, on July 10. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
An Army lawyer for Sgt. Alan J. Driver, a reservist accused of abusing Bagram detainees, asked Tuesday where al-Farouq was and what the Army had done to find him in time for Driver's court proceedings.
Capt. John B. Parker, a prosecutor, said al-Farouq and three others escaped from the Bagram detention center and have not been found.
"If we find him ... we will make him available," Parker said [with a smirk on his face].
...


FURTHER READING

CBS News (AP), "Pentagon: Top al-Qaida Operative Escaped", 2 November 2005.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/02/ap/national/mainD8
DK2I300.shtml
A man once considered a top al-Qaida operative escaped from a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan and cannot testify against the soldier who allegedly mistreated him, a defense lawyer involved in a prison abuse case said Tuesday.
Omar al-Farouq was one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants in Southeast Asia until Indonesian authorities captured him in the summer of 2002 and turned him over to the United States.
A Pentagon official in Washington confirmed Tuesday evening that al-Farouq escaped from a U.S. detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan, on July 10. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
An Army lawyer for Sgt. Alan J. Driver, a reservist accused of abusing Bagram detainees, asked Tuesday where al-Farouq was and what the Army had done to find him in time for Driver's court proceedings.
Capt. John B. Parker, a prosecutor, said al-Farouq and three others escaped from the Bagram detention center and have not been found.
"If we find him ... we will make him available," Parker said.
...
Al-Farouq could have been the first detainee to testify against a soldier in the Afghanistan prisoner abuse case.
...