Canadian sues US military for alleged torture

A Canadian man who claims he was falsely imprisoned and tortured last year by the American military shortly after the invasion of Iraq is suing the US army for 350,000 US dollars, it is reported here Tuesday.

Hossam Shaltout, 57, an aerospace engineer and a former resident of Toronto, filed his suit on April 30 with the US Army Claims Office.

Shaltout was born in Egypt and moved to Canada in 1971, Shaltout told The Canadian Press Monday in an interview from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he works.

He became a Canadian citizenbut then moved to Los Angeles in 1984. He still holds a Canadian passport.

Shaltout says he went to Iraq before the war on behalf of a group called Rights and Freedom International, hoping to persuade Iraqi leaders to step down.

He alleges he was arrested by US troops on April 9, 2003 and taken to Camp Bucca, a detention site in southern Iraq. He says USauthorities there accused him of being a speech writer and "right-hand-man" of deposed president Saddam Hussein.

Shaltout says he was detained three days in an armored personnel carrier and beaten. He said he also saw Iraqis being tortured.

He says he was freed and eventually taken to Egypt. He says he now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and cannot work properly.

Shaltout's accusation come in the wake of a larger scandal involving alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Photographs of Iraqi prisoners published last week show prisoners being stripped naked,hooded and tormented at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

Source: Xinhua