EL HASKI v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT 15 interrogation, the prisoners are blindfolded. Interrogations are often very long, 16 hours a day, we have been told, with police officers taking it in turns to interrogate. Insults and blows are commonplace, with prisoners sometimes being stripped naked. A number of cases of electrical torture have been reported. 22 defendants from the Fikri group wrote in March 2003 to the AMDH to testify. ‘The cell at Témara where I was held had a high ceiling and a small window at the top with thick bars. There was a hole for a toilet and a bucket of water’. Having being assaulted during his arrest, and still having a sprained knee, the witness continued ‘I was in agony and was asking for treatment, as my knee had become very swollen and blue. A warder then answered me “I’ll saw off your bloody knee, then”‘. Abderrazek Fawzi had been held since his arrest on 18 September 2002 in a single cell with no windows. There was only a foam mattress and a dilapidated blanket lying on the floor. Blindfolded and handcuffed, he was ‘grilled’. ‘During that interrogation in Temara’, he wrote, ‘I was punched and kicked, humiliated and insulted and left with cigarette burns on my hands. These twice-daily practices resulted in physical and mental suffering, of which I still have obvious signs, not to mention the nightmares and lack of sleep’. ‘... They took me in secret to Tamara, where I underwent a number of interrogations using terrible methods because I would never see the sun again, according to them’, said Salah Zarli. ‘I acknowledged that I had been to Afghanistan . They asked me to work with them to better understand the “Afghans”, especially the Afghan Moroccans and the Islamists in Milan, where I worked at the Islamic Institute. Four days later, they let me go and asked me to keep them informed.’ After being released, S. Zarli was arrested again on 3 September 2002: ‘Four people accompanied me home, searched everywhere and took away all my papers. Once again they took me to Temara, where they kept me a month and a half locked in a single cell that I would leave only for interrogation, which lasted 16 hours at a time; the interrogation began at 8 in the morning and went on until midnight. I was beaten all over, stripped naked, insulted, spat at, threatened and so on. All this without seeing the faces of my torturers. What interested them was the Islamists in Italy and those who were going to Afghanistan or Bosnia. They tried to bribe me by promising to help me set up a business.’ Cases of rape have been reported. Abdelghani Bentaous claimed to have been raped three times. Abdelmajid Rais said he was raped with a bottle and burned with cigarettes. Other detainees said they had been burned with cigarettes and suspended for hours or tortured by water-boarding. Bouchaïeb Kermej told his sisters that, in addition to the beatings and threats, he had once been given an injection at the top of the spine, as a result of which he thought he must have fainted. Several detainees who had refused to sign their statements were finally tortured into signing. This was claimed, for example, by Abdelghani Bentaous and Atchane to their lawyers and to the judge. ‘... Handcuffed and blindfolded, I was taken to the torture chamber where I was made to kneel and put my arms on my head to keep me like that during the long interrogation that followed. Whenever I hesitated and stuttered or made a mistake, I was beaten with a braided electric wire. I was struck on the head, back, soles of the feet, buttocks and thighs, also being slapped and punched on the face, which left me deaf in my left ear. A doctor then came to see me and prescribed medication. When I went back the torture room, one of the torturers tore my shirt off in front of my younger brother, who was screaming – I heard him but could not see him because I was still blindfolded. I was taken to torture sessions, where I spent the