Kamilya Mohammedi Tuweni

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Kamilya Mohammedi Tuweni is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates who reports being held in extrajudicial detention in Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia.[1] Tuweni was born on Zanzibar, Tanzania.[2] She is an Arabic-Swahili translator, and mother of three.

Contents

[edit] Capture

According to a telephone interview with the Associated Press Tuweni says she was captured on January 10, 2007, while on a business trip to Kenya.[1] The BBC reports Tuweni was arrested in February.[2] Tuweni says she was beaten in Kenya, then sent to Somalia, a country she had never visited, and had no connection with.

Tuweni told the Associated Press that she spent her first ten days in captivity in Somalia, sharing a cell with 22 other women and children.[1] She said she and the other women and children had to sleep on the cell's stone floor. The BBC says that Somalia officials declined to feed them.[2] A local woman, who occasionally brought a plate of spaghetti for the 23 captives to share, was their only nourishment. Her next stop was Ethiopia.[1]

According to the Associated Press:[1]

Finally, she said, she was taken blindfolded from prison to a private villa in the Ethiopian capital. There, she said, she was interrogated with other women by a male U.S. intelligence agent. He assured her that she would not be harmed but urged her to cooperate, she said.

Tuweni said the US official interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed her, but she does not report being tortured, or further abused, during her stay in the CIA safe house. According to Tuweni, approximately a month after her transfer to Ethiopia, she was

The Associated Press quoted Tuweni:[1]

  • "It was a nightmare from start to finish."
  • "We cried the whole time because we did not know what would happen. The whole thing was very scary."

The Associated Press wrote that they were able to corroborate part of Tuweni's story.[1] The flight manifest of African Express Airways flight 5Y AXF recorded that Tuweni was one of the 32 individuals on an unscheduled flight chartered by Kenya, that flew her and her companions to Mogadishu.

[edit] Release

Tuweni was released, in Addis Ababa, on March 24, 2007.[1] The BBC reports that Tuweni said that her case was given priority, because she engaged in a hunger strike.[2]

[edit] Suing Kenya

The BBC reported, on April 11, 2006, that Tuweni is suing the Kenyan government[2] for wrongful arrest and abuse of her rights.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Anthony Mitchell. "U.S. Agents Visit Ethiopian Secret Jails", Associated Press, April 3, 2007. Retrieved on April 28. 
  2. ^ a b c d e Noel Mwakugu. "'I want justice for terror detention'", BBC, Wednesday, April 11, 2007. Retrieved on April 28.