Sabah Jassim Muhammad Mahdi al-Shummari

Sabah Jassim Muhammad Mahdi al-Shummari, a veteran of the Iraqi Air Force, retired after the fall of Baghdad to US forces in 2003, and opened a private car parking lot. He has two wives and nine children.

Sabah recalls the night of his arrest. ISIS raided one of his two houses at two o’clock in the morning, but they were unable to find him as he was spending the night with his other wife. ISIS arrested his two married sons who were living with him, and his daughter who was visiting. They then moved on to his other wife’s house where they arrested him. They arrested many others in the neighborhood at the same time. They were all taken to al-Ahdath Prison. None of them were able to sleep on that first night.

Sabah says he was interrogated and tortured for 15 days. He was the first to be summoned for interrogation, and was handcuffed and blindfolded. The interrogator stood behind him, calling him a “Shia” or a “Shia sympathizer”, which Sabah denied. The accusations then changed to collaborating with the Iraqi Security Forces, who had been using his private parking lot. Sabah explained that he could not prevent them from doing so, given their authoritative role. ISIS then interrogated his two sons for the same reasons. They tortured them before his eyes. Both his sons had existing medical conditions. The older son had previously undergone surgery for an arterial embolism in both legs, yet the interrogators beat him with billiard cues. They beat his legs so hard that they broke several cues and caused a lot of bleeding. The younger son had asthma and yet was tortured to such an extent that he fell unconscious three times and each time had to be carried back to the cell in a blanket. Sabah is sure he recognized some of the guards who interrogated and tortured him or made false statements about him.

Regarding the torture methods used, Sabah says that ISIS used everything one could think of. He lists whipping prisoners on their feet, suspending them from ceiling fans,  pulling out their nails, and cutting them with knives before putting salt on their wounds.

Sabah recounts how all of these methods were used on his two sons. ISIS would force him to watch, removing his blindfold and telling him that they could do anything they wanted. Sabah used to cry out, wishing he could do something to stop it. 

He is emotional as he describes how the medical conditions of his sons deteriorated after their release.  His older son’s legs were so badly bruised and blackened from blood retention that the only option left was to amputate them. The younger son’s asthma became far worse, and he still suffers chest pains today.

His pregnant daughter told him that she was also detained and tortured in the same prison by female jailers who were no less brutal than their male counterparts. Male jailers oversaw female prisoners but kept their distance, only harassing them verbally. Sabah’s daughter told him about the execution of two of her fellow inmates. Her suffering worsened when her toddler, who had been left in the family home when she was imprisoned, died 20 days after her release.

Sabah continues listing the suffering ISIS inflicted on his family. They killed another of his daughters and her husband who worked as a contractor because they did not pay protection money. Their two sons, who are now young men, currently live with Sabah. ISIS also murdered Sabah’s brother and published a video of it on social media.

Sabah describes life in the prison. 300 prisoners were crammed into one 75 square-meter group cell. Most of them had been accused of affiliating with the Iraqi Armed Forces — and most were executed. The inmates rarely communicated amongst themselves; if they did, they were often very cautious in case ISIS informants were planted amongst them. 

The lack of mattresses meant that each one had to be shared between three or four prisoners. Food was very simple: breakfast consisted of a piece of bread with cheese and a bottle of water, while lunch was rice with some kind of broth. Regarding hygiene, Sabah says that the prison was extremely dirty and filled with foul odors. There were four filthy toilets overflowing with waste, yet this was the only place the prisoners could wash. Water was scarce, barely enough for the toilet to function properly, and soap was limited. Sabah emphasizes that he had no privacy when using the toilets. He also adds that there was no healthcare or medication of any type.

Sabah then recounts the events that led to his release. One day at dawn, an airstrike targeted the prison, hitting the nearby group cell and killing around 60 inmates. No ISIS members were hurt as they had evacuated earlier, leaving the prisoners locked in. By the next day, the remaining prisoners were all transferred to the Intelligence Center Prison, and from there to the Qaimaqamiyaiya Prison. There Sabah was summoned to a judge, who ordered him and his two sons to be released.

Sabah concludes his testimony by saying that ISIS was a curse on his family and that they do not represent Islam. Before ISIS, he recalls, his life was going well. After they arrived, everything turned upside down, both physically and psychologically. Now, Sabah suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, and constant stress. Whenever he tries to sleep, he says, he feels as if he has died a thousand deaths.