Sami Abd Khalil

Sami Abd Khalil has been imprisoned twice: once in 1991, under the rule of Saddam Hussein, and once in 2015, during ISIS rule.

In the first part of his testimony, Sami recalls his first detention. At that time, he was a 17-year-old school student. He became involved in a fight with two security agents at the grocery store where he worked. Obeying his father, he turned himself in at a police station, where he was flogged with a plastic hose. Five days later, he was transferred to the Ahdath Prison – at that time a juvenile detention center – pending a court verdict.

Sami recounts what he observed and how he suffered in the Ahdath Prison. The group cell contained bunk beds. The juveniles held there passed their time discussing their court cases and personal problems.

Sami says that he was not subjected to torture in the prison, but that he was terrified by what he witnessed there. When the jailers summoned someone for interrogation, the prisoner would return three or four hours later, disfigured and exhausted.

One juvenile prisoner had been sentenced to death, but was imprisoned until he reached adulthood so that the sentence could be carried out. Sami learned later that the young man had indeed been executed.

Sometimes fights broke out between the prisoners. Sami describes how these incidents – as well as his fear of informants planted among them – made him cautious about interacting with the other inmates. He tried to avoid any disagreement or altercation that might result in torture.

Sami describes the prison environment, detailing the morning and evening roll calls, the time spent in the yard, and mealtimes. He recalls that the quality of the food was surprisingly good, with three nutritious meals a day. However, this did not compensate for the ill treatment and the total lack of hygiene. Due to a lack of water, the boys were unable to shower every day, and lice and scabies spread among them. Those who suffered any form of illness were transferred via ambulance to a nearby hospital, as health care inside prison was non-existent.

Visits were allowed. Sami recalls visiting day, the meetings with his mother, and the anguish he felt during those visits. He also remarks on the corruption of the security forces. They often seized the cigarettes the families brought for the prisoners and then sold them back to the prisoners in exchange for money or for the eggs the prisoners had for breakfast. 

Thanks to his father’s endeavors, Sami was released from prison after serving one month. But he didn’t return to school, and he started to avoid people. What upsets him is that the prison was a juvenile detention center and yet there was no rehabilitation, and no care or guidance of any kind. There were no psychological or social specialists in the prison.

Sami then moves on to narrate his second arrest, 24 years after his first detention. He was first accused of smuggling Shia neighbors out of Mosul. When ISIS couldn’t find any proof to back this charge, it accused him of smuggling cigarettes. The organization confiscated one of his two cars and took him to a house in the Faisalia area that was used as a prison. Initially, he suspected that some ISIS members in his neighborhood had a personal grudge against him as a result of his good relations with Shia neighbors, and that they had framed him for smuggling cigarettes, even though those who arrested him couldn’t find a single cigarette on him. However, when he arrived at the prison, he discovered that some of his friends, who had also been arrested, had given his name as the source of the goods after being forced to implicate someone under severe torture.

Sami describes the prison as a very small house into which about 200 prisoners were crammed. It had a ground floor and a basement. The prisoners were terrified of ISIS informants, and so behaved with extreme caution.

Two days after his arrest, ISIS jailers took Sami to the torture room, strapped him upside down to the hantoura – a bed-like contraption – and muted his cries with a pillow. They tortured him for two hours until he lost consciousness. These torture sessions were repeated during the mornings and afternoons of 9 of the 12 days he was detained. Despite the severe torture, Sami refused to make a confession. As a result, ISIS released him after imposing a fine of 23,000,000 Iraqi dinars (about 20,000 US dollars at the time). They threatened to imprison his father if he did not pay. Eventually, they confiscated his second car as compensation.

Sami concludes his testimony by saying that he still bears traces of torture on his body: a dislocated shoulder and broken metatarsals. He now avoids others, in order to prevent any situation that might lead to a return to prison.