Name: Ahmed Naeem

Age: 23

Ahmed Naeem (23) was also serving a sentence for a drug-related offense when Gaamaadhoo prison was set on fire in 1998. He was accused of being one of the ring leaders who set fire to the prison. According to Naeem, the investigations started on the second night after the fire and he was the third person to be interrogated. When he refused to sign a statement written by the interrogators, he and ten others were taken around midday the following day to a football pitch and ordered by National Security Service officer Shama to kneel down. Shama talked to them very rudely and took his uniform off and challenged them to unarmed combat. Naeem said they were saved from a beating when Shama had to answer a phone call.

Naeem and the others were then put on a boat to Dhoonidhoo Detention Centre. On the boat they were cuffed individually to various parts of the boat. Naeem said on arrival at Dhoonidhoo, they were picked up by the arms and their legs by National Security Service officers and thrown on to land like heavy tuna fish. Once on land they were marched to a line of chairs. They were kicked and beaten by the guards on their way to the chairs.

About six hours later, around sunset, Assistant Commissioner Mohamed Sadiq came and showed them a letter from the Ministry of Defense permitting the interrogators to extract confession statements from the suspects by using any means necessary.

For the evening meal they were given a handful of rice and a little curry sauce and the daily ration of fresh water, a bottle of mineral water. For breakfast they were given two small round flat breads and a small cup of tea. The suspects were permitted to go to the toilet, but had to front roll their way to the toilet while their hands were cuffed and do side rolls on their way back from the toilet. They were allowed 10 seconds to urinate and one minute if they had to do anything else.

Naeem’s interrogation lasted fifteen days and fifteen nights, during which time he was deprived of sleep and could neither brush his teeth nor give himself a wash and had to sit on a chair. According to Naeem, the beatings started every night at around ten o’clock and went on till sunrise. Sometimes, the interrogators would throw sand on them and spray them with high pressure water to remove the sand. This went on for hours before the interrogators applied another method. One such method was to cuff one hand and one leg so that the victim had to bend his knees. When the knees were bent, they put a beam behind the knee while an interrogator sat on the suspect’s shoulder. Another method used by the interrogators was to force one suspect to hit another suspect. If they refused, the interrogators beat them.

After refusing to sign a confession statement of the interrogators’ choice for more than a fortnight, Ahmed Naeem signed the statement when he could not bear the torture anymore. Once the confession statement was signed Naeem was given a blanket and foldable bed and allowed to sleep out in the open air. The next day he was transferred to Gaamaadhoo prison and put into cell number 4. A few days later he was transferred to Maafushi prison and put into a fish warehouse.

On the 7^th of September he was taken out of his cell and was informed of his father’s death by Captain Adam Mohamed (Fusfaru). He was then taken to Male’ to see his father. During the trip he was handcuffed and was escorted by fourteen officers of the National Security Service. He was only allowed to see his father’s face, but the requests to join the burial prayers at the mosque and the handcuffs to be removed were turned down by the officers.

On the way back he took toiletries for himself to the prison, but the items were confiscated at the entry check point. When later that day he asked National Security Service Private Farish to give him at least a little amount of the toiletries Farish told him that he would get some that night.

Around midnight that night he was taken out of his cell and cuffed around a very large coconut tree behind his back. Naeem remembers that night being a very rainy and stormy night. A little later the guards poured ice-cold water on his head followed by sugared water. They then tightened the cuffs on his wrist. According to Naeem, having his hands chopped off would have been less painful than being cuffed in this manner. When he begged the guards to remove him from the coconut palm, they did so and ordered him to go into the sea. He was ordered to walk farther and farther into the lagoon while his hands were cuffed. When he stopped and refused to go on the guards threw stones at him. A little while later the guards put a coconut trunk on Naeem’s shoulders and ordered him to run. When he was unable to run, they cuffed one hand and one leg together and forced him to run on sharp coral at the same speed as a guard. He was kicked by the guard every time he fell behind. After a few minutes of running, Naeem was cuffed again with the coconut palm at his back.

Around six in the morning he was uncuffed and was allowed to go to the toilet. Soon after breakfast at 7 o’clock his hands were again cuffed behind a coconut palm. At around 9.30am when he saw the wife of Captain Adam Mohamed (Fusfaru) he begged her to tell her husband to remove him from the palm and let him back into the cell. After listening to Naeem, she went inside the administration building and shortly after two National Security Service officers came out and put an egg into his mouth and taped his mouth. They then removed him from that coconut palm and hung him by his cuffs on a coconut palm that was jutting out into the sea. He was thus hanging from the palm with the lower half of his body in water. The guards removed the tape from his mouth around lunch time and took him off the palm and gave him two minutes to eat his lunch. When the two minutes were up, they hung him back on the palm.

The guards came back around ten o’clock that evening and poured the toiletries that they had confiscated on his head before dipping him in the sea and cuffing him to a coconut palm a bit further inland. When he screamed when they tightened the cuffs, the guards took him behind the goat pen and beat him with plastic PVC pipes and aluminium pipes and stuffed coral into his mouth.

After 72 hours, he was let into his cell when Brigadier Mohamed Zahir came for a visit. According to Naeem, when the guards let him into his cell his legs were swollen beyond recognition and his back was covered in clotted blood.

Ahmed Naeem spent one and a half years with his hands cuffed. Ahmed Naeem was released in 2003 following a general amnesty given by president Gayoom following the death of Evan Naseem.

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