The story of the tortured and the torturer
Bahrain Freedom Movement - 31/07/2007 - 3:56 p | Hits: 1253
The recent discovery that the notorious torturer Ian Henderson was still enjoying the protection of the Al Khalifa regime in Bahrain has infuriated human rights activists and added impetus to the moves to try him and other torturers for crimes against humanity.
Mr Henderson was seen on 22nd July at London’s Heathrow airport taking a British Airways flight back to Bahrain after spending few weeks in London. Accompanied by his wife, Henderson was not worried that any action against former torturers would be taken by the Bahraini regime. In the brief conversation at the marquee outside Terminal 4, the former British colonial officer, who had served in Kenya in the fifties, did not show the slightest feeling of remorse for what he has been accused of committing. He considered the victims who had been tortured to death such as Saeed Al Eskafi and Nooh Khalil Al Nooh, as inevitable in such a political conflict. Furthermore, he described the notorious torturer, Adel Flaifel, as “good man”.
The story of torture in Bahrain is closely linked to Ian Henderson. Soon after his arrival in Bahrain on 26th April 1966, he was given the task of re-organising the Special Branch in such a way that it would provide good protection for the ruling Al Khalifa family after the departure of the British in 1971. His employment came after a “recommendation” by the British Political Agent in Bahrain, Anthony Parsons. It is ironic that the two men had lives in two adjacent villages in Devon, separated by no more than five miles or arid land. His first years saw his heavy-handed treatment of the active members of the Bahrain Liberation Front, a Marxist movement that had been formed in mid-fifties. Several of its members said that they had been tortured by Henderson and his men. After the withdrawal of the British, Henderson assumed a stronger role, especially after the imposition of the notorious State Security Law in 1974. When the first and last elected Parliament rejected this law, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, ordered the dissolution of the Parliament and the suspension of significant articles of the Constitution. For the following quarter of a century, Henderson played the trumpet at high tunes imposing a reign of terror that had never been seen before. Scores of young Bahrainis were killed by the secret security service under his command.
Between 1975 and 2000 local and international human rights activists and organizations raised their voices against the torture regime, the arbitrary detentions, the forcible exiles and the maltreatment of peaceful protesters. The Al Khalifa would not listen to these pleas and Henderson continued his policies unperturbed. Some of his surviving victims decided to take action against him, urging the British police to build up a criminal case to pin him down. For the past ten years, testimonies were collected by the Metropolitan police with vivid details of the torture regime he had employed against Bahrainis. New disturbing facts have now emerged. The Police are alleged to have given guarantees to Henderson’s lawyers that he would not be arrested or even questioned if he came to London for treatment. This may explain his relaxed attitude when confronted at the airport by one of the Bahraini activists about his past. He was not ready to apologise for his victims arguing that casualties were inevitable in the political conflict that had engulfed the Gulf islands. The hope was that a powerful lesson would be given to others by bringing Ian Henderson to account for his misdemeanors. After all, he is a man with a long history of mistreatment of his foes.
He had started his career in the fifties as a colonial officer, pursuing the Mao Mao fighters in Mount Kenya. His biggest achievement was the capture of Deedan Kimathi, one of the leaders of the rebels. He continued his campaign against the Mao Mao until the British rule ended and a new nationalist regime took over in 1964. The new leadership immediately took action against a number of British officers, including Ian Henderson. The new Vice President, Oginga Odinga ordered the immediate expulsion of these officers. Henderson left Kenya and is said to have served briefly in Rhodesia under Ian Smith’s racist regime. Two years later he was recruited by the British administration in Bahrain, where his earlier experience against armed revolutionaries was extensively used against unarmed civilians. Despite his secretive movements, acts and personality, his notoriety as the head of one of the most brutal secret service in the region, made him an attractive story to the news media. Several reports, articles and TV prgrammes were published to highlight his role as an alleged torturer. However, he has remained defiant, relying mainly on the goodwill of the Al Khalifa regime. When the present ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, inherited the throne following the death of his father in 1999, Henderson was swiftly retired. To eliminate his fear of any prosecution, Sheikh Hamad issued the notorious decree 56/2002 that gave impunity to torturers. Henderson was thus sheltered from any impending lawsuits. When some of his victims attempted to bring their cases to court, the Al Khalifa-appointed judiciary simply brushed them aside.
It is thus the duty of the international community to reclaim a degree of moral high ground and act decisively against torturers employing the UN legal tools against them. The cases of torture of Bahraini victims are abundant. The perpetrators of these heinous crimes are enjoying the protection of the regime. Infact, this regime is encouraging other officers to perpetrate similar crimes against the innocent people of Bahrain. In the past six years, at least three young men have been mercilessly murdered by Sheikh Hamad’s death squads. The latest victim, Abbas Al Shakhouri, was killed earlier this year. Other victims were tortured in the open air on orders from the royal court. It is expected that torture will be widely used as the opposition to the Al Khalifa hereditary dictatorship intensifies in the coming months. Pursuing torturers such as Henderson, Flaifel and Abdul Aziz Atiyyat Allah and bringing them to international courts will undoubtedly send strong signals to other torturers and dictators. It will be a great service to the victims, activists and, above all, international justice.
http://www.vob.org/en/index.php?show=ne ... cle&id=219
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Britain’s role in Bahrain’s torture regime
by PAUL WOODWARD on FEBRUARY 17, 2011
Colonel Ian Henderson, who from 1966 until 1998 was Bahrain’s security chief, is alleged to have instituted and overseen a brutal torture regime in the Gulf state, as a result of which he came to be known as the “Butcher of Bahrain.” Numerous human rights organizations have investigated and confirmed the allegations against him, yet an investigation by British police was suspended in 2008 due to a lack of co-operation from the Bahrain government.
“Ian Henderson has played a very dirty role,” said Saeed Shehabi, Bahrain Freedom Movement, in 2002. “Ever since he came to Bahrain in 1966, he embarked upon an era of terror and thousands of people were arrested — arbitrarily arrested — and tortured under his command. Until he retired, two or three years ago, he was the strong man behind the whole repressive regime in Bahrain.”
Blind Eye to the Butcher (2002)
In a report on Bahrain’s reliance on foreign nationals in its security services, Ian Black adds:
Bahrainis often complain that the riot police and special forces do not speak the local dialect, or in the case of Baluchis from Pakistan, do not speak Arabic at all and are reviled as mercenaries. Officers are typically Bahrainis, Syrians or Jordanians. Iraqi Ba’athists who served in Saddam Hussein’s security forces were recruited after the US-led invasion in 2003. Only the police employs Bahraini Shias.
The secret police – the Bahrain national security agency, known in Arabic as the Mukhabarat – has undergone a process of “Bahrainisation” in recent years after being dominated by the British until long after independence in 1971. Ian Henderson, who retired as its director in 1998, is still remembered as the “Butcher of Bahrain” because of his alleged use of torture. A Jordanian official is currently described as the organisation’s “master torturer”.
Channel 4 report on human rights abuses in Bahrain (1999)
http://warincontext.org/2011/02/17/brit ... re-regime/
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