Asif Iqbal | |
---|---|
Arrested | 2001 Pakistan |
Citizenship | United Kingdom |
Detained at | Sheberghan, Guantanamo |
ISN | 87 |
Charge(s) | extrajudicial detention |
Status | released |
Asif Iqbal (born 24 April 1981) is a British citizen who was held, in extrajudicial detention, as a terror suspect in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba from early 2002 to March 9. 2004. He is one of the Tipton Three, three friends from the same town who were captured together in Afghanistan. Their story was portrayed in the docu-drama, Road to Guantanamo (2006).
Iqbal was born on 24 April 1981 in West Bromwich and later lived in Tipton, both of which are in the West Midlands of England. He had traveled to Pakistan in the fall of 2001 with friends Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, also from Tipton.
The three were captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance and transferred to United States military custody. After the completion of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in January 2002, they were transferred there, where they were interrogated and held without recourse to lawyers.
Iqbal's Guantanamo detainee Internment Serial Number was 87. He and his friends were returned to Britain, where the government released them without charges the day after their arrival.
In August 2004, Iqbal, Ahmed and Rasul released a lengthy report on the physical and mental abuses suffered while in US custody, which included sexual and religious humiliation. According to the BBC, the three describe significant abuse, including being repeatedly punched, kicked, slapped, forcibly injected with drugs, deprived of sleep, hooded, photographed naked, and subjected to body cavity searches, and sexual and religious humiliations. An American guard allegedly told the inmates: "The world does not know you're here - we would kill you and no-one would know."