Searing Uncertainty for Iraqis Missing Loved Ones

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/international/middleeast/01PRIS.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 26 — Huriyah Jassim Gomar carries around a sparse file that is all she has of her middle son, Adil: his photograph, an identification card, request forms written to the American military with responses that add up to zero.

<snip>

In a dingy house in Al Dura, a poor neighborhood in southern Baghdad, Sadiq Zoman, 56, lies in a coma, fed puréed chicken and vegetables through a rubber tube in his stomach.

Mr. Zoman, a hospital administrator who was a top local official in Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in the northern city of Kirkuk, was arrested in an American military raid on his house on July 21, 2003. His family had no clear word about him until Sept. 4, when his wife and several of his nine daughters found him in a civilian hospital in Tikrit, Mr. Hussein's hometown.

Mr. Zoman had a long beard, his hair hung to his shoulders, the family says, and his eyes wandered blankly around the room. His head had been fractured in three places, his thumb badly broken, the bottoms of his feet burned.

<snip>

An e-mail request to the Fourth Infantry Division, responsible for the area at the time, went unanswered. But a spokeswoman for the division told The New Standard, a Web site with a reporter in Iraq who first wrote about Mr. Zoman in January, said the kind of injuries reported by the family "just absolutely would not be tolerated" by the military.

...more that needs to be read...

and this ties in with seemslikeadream's post in another thread (just so we don't get our torture victims confused)

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=275

excerpt:

More than a month later, on August 23, US soldiers dropped Zoman off, already comatose, at a hospital in Tikrit. Although he was unable to recount his story, his body bore telltale signs of torture: what appear to be point burns on his skin, bludgeon marks on the back of his head, a badly broken thumb, electrical burns on the soles of his feet. Additionally, family members say they found whip marks across his back and more electrical burns on his genitalia.

...more...

[Barrett808]

1. Dahr Jamail broke the story of Mr. Zoman

http://blog.newstandardnews.net/iraqdispatches/