Why no NYC trial KSM...the children..too much media there

[Steven Gaal]

KSM's children were tortured....tortured

Pakistan: children among victims of enforced disappearance

Updated: 19 March 2009

In Pakistan, children have both suffered the trauma of disappeared relatives, or become victims of enforced disappearance themselves, sometimes to exert pressure on parents sought by security forces.

Abdullah was only ten years-old when he and his father, Mufti Munir Shakir, the leader of an Islamic group in the Khyber Agency, were arrested on May 16, 2006 at Karachi airport. Abdullah was reportedly interrogated and tortured or ill-treated to make him confess that his father had links with al-Qaeda. Fifty-eight days later he was reportedly released and dropped off in front of the Governor's House in Peshawar after being given assurances that his father would be freed within 15 days. The whereabouts of Mufti Munir Shakir remained unknown until his release over a year later in August 2007. He was never charged with any offence.

Several persons subjected to enforced disappearance have reported seeing children in places of secret detention in Pakistan, often without knowing their names and identity. Mohammad Atif, a former student from Lahore, was released on November 27, 2006, having been picked up on his way home from college in August 2004. He told journalists that he had seen several boys of not more than 15 or 16 years while in detention. He stated that he was frequently transferred and could not identify where the children were held or the reason why they were detained.

In September 2002, Yusuf al-Khalid, then nine years-old, and Abed al-Khalid, then seven years-old, were reportedly apprehended by Pakistani security forces during an attempted capture of their father, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Reports by other detainees indicate that the boys were ill-treated while in Pakistani custody. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was apprehended in March 2003 and was subjected to over three years of enforced disappearance, and to other torture and ill-treatment, by the US authorities before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay, where he is currently held.

After Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's arrest in March 2003, Yusuf and Abed Al Khalid were reportedly transferred out of Pakistan to US custody -- allegedly for questioning about their father's activities and to be used as leverage to force their father to co-operate. A Sunday Telegraph (UK) article in March 2003 alleged that CIA interrogators had detained the children and that one official explained that: "We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children...but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care." In the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Combatant Status Review Tribunal in March 2007, he indicates knowledge that his children were apprehended and abused: "They arrested my kids intentionally. They are kids. They been arrested for four months, they had been abused." Their whereabouts remain unknown.

Edited April 26, 2010 by Steven Gaal