May 5, 2004
U.S. Resident Claims Torture by Troops
Washington Post

A U.S. resident has alleged in a legal claim that he was tortured by U.S. troops in Iraq in April 2003 while held as a prisoner at Camp Bucca, a U.S. detention center in Umm Qasr.

By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 5, 2004; Page A21

TORONTO, May 4 -- A U.S. resident has alleged in a legal claim that he was tortured by U.S. troops in Iraq in April 2003 while held as a prisoner at Camp Bucca, a U.S. detention center in Umm Qasr.




Hossam Shaltout, 57, charged in the complaint that he was arrested that April outside the Sheraton hotel in Baghdad. He was then handcuffed, and soldiers beat him with their open hands, fists and shoes, according to the pleading, filed with the U.S. Army Claims Office on April 30. The word Canadian was written in black marker on his white shirt, the claim says. Shaltout is described in the filing as an Egyptian-born Canadian citizen with U.S. permanent resident status.

"Apparently being a Canadian did not mean favorable treatment, for Mr. Shaltout was then interrogated and tortured on a daily basis," says the pleading. "For example, he was required to wait under the fierce southern Iraqi sun for his turn at being interrogated, and when the interrogation began, he was falsely accused of having Iraqi documents in his possession, all with a view toward extracting a confession."

Attempts to reach a U.S. Army spokesman in Baghdad Tuesday night regarding the claim were unsuccessful. The Army is pursuing various investigations of alleged abuse of detainees in Iraq.

Shaltout arrived in Canada in 1971 and moved to the United States four years later, according to his pleading. Shaltout says in the claim that he went to Iraq in January 2003, about three months before the U.S.-led invasion, "to convince the leaders of Iraq that they should step down in order to avoid war with the United States."

He said was working for a private organization, Rights and Freedom International, when he was arrested on April 9, 2003, the day that Baghdad fell. The Marines refused to allow him to return to his hotel room, where he said he had hidden more than $100,000 in cash, according to the complaint, which seeks at least $350,000 in compensation. Instead, he was taken in an armored personnel carrier to the Bucca facility.

The complaint says the money now is missing along with his laptop computer, his Canadian passport, Egyptian passport, U.S. Social Security card, Florida driver's license and U.S. green card.

He said his captors accused him of having been a "right-hand man" and speechwriter for Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi president, which he said he denied.

Shaltout said he was released from U.S. custody on May 15, 2003, and deported to Egypt.

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