"SAM" Denounces the Illegal Detention of Civilians by Transitional Forces

Geneva-SAM said that the anti-terrorist forces led by Yisran al-Mqatari, the storm brigade led by Osan al-Anashli ,and some of the armed forces in the city of Aden, which is controlled by the Transitional Council and supported by the United Arab Emirates, arbitrarily arrested and forcibly concealed dozens of people in the Wadhah Hall detention in the capital, Aden which takes it as a place of enforced disappearance, some of them may have died under torture.

The organization added that the local authority in Aden province must protect the rights of all detainees, immediately release all arbitrarily detained people, and grant family members, lawyers and independent observers immediate access to detention sites to reduce the risk of ill-treatment.

The organization continued that the recent escalation of arrests against civil society activists and civilians has escalated alarmingly, with 150 cases of violations recorded between January and April, including 49 cases of arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance by various Transitional Council forces, some of whom their families are unable to know their whereabouts. The reasons for the arrest do not appear to be clear, but, according to documented testimony, many of them for their arrest are linked to the internationally recognized government or to the Houthi coup d'état group.

Tawfiq Al Hamidi, President of SAM for Rights and Liberties, said that "SAM monitored the recurrence of incidents of kidnapping and enforced disappearance of civilians for more than nine months without bringing them before the prosecution or issuing a warrant for their arrest." He added: "Complaints and statements obtained by the organization indicate the involvement of the Anti-Terrorist Force and the Storm Brigade in illegal practices, including denial of access, basic needs and torture, in flagrant contravention of the relevant rules of international law."

SAM obtained statements from former detainees released that a Hungarian citizen, George Koltai, known as Abdulhakim Faris Kimo, 44, died in Wadhah Hall detention last Ramadan  2020.

According to another detainee, George Abdel-Hakim was arrested from a hotel in Almalla in the city of Aden, after arriving in Aden from the State of Hungary in 2020, by security agents, and transferred to the counter-terrorism service overseeing the Hall of Wadhah on the coast of Gold Moor abnd was there between two and three months, he was subjected to severe and excessive torture, ranging from beating with wires to sticks, until he lost his teeth. The victim suffered from heart disease. He was then infected with the Corona virus without any medical procedures being carried out by the prison administration. He was left suffering from the virus until he died on 27 Ramadan last year. The investigation and torture were supervised by Yisran al-Mqatari, another person named "Ashil Abu Kaleb" and a third called Mohammad Ihab al-Sabaihi, from Al-Qaloa’a area working in counter-terrorism operations.

According to the statements, Abdel-Hakim suffered from the disease so severely that blood began to leak from his body holes, and according to multiple testimonies, when the prisoners were asking for help for the patient in the cells of the Wadhah Hall, the Hall officials responded: "Don't call us for any patient unless he dies." After his death, Kimo was taken from the cell, believed to be buried. SAM has not been able to obtain official statements about the incident.

The organization said that George Koltay worked in Hodeida province as part of a technical team from 2009 to 2012, before his arrest by the Houthi group from 2015 to 2017, during which he was severely tortured before being released and returned to Hungary and then to Yemen in 2020.

In August 2019, counter-terrorism forces arrested Muhammad Ali Fatini, 31, and his friend, Majid Abdullah and Waheeb as they passed through the Flag Point on Abyan Road as they returned to their home in Aden, they also kidnapped Hani Ahmed Hussain, 24, from his home and he has been deported to a camp of the anti - terrorist forces led by Osan Al-Anashli, who is accused of serious legal offences against civilians.

The father of the arrested Fatini told SAM: "My son was abducted on his way home, where he and his colleague, Majid Abdullah, were searched, driven out of the car and sent to the counter - terrorism camp in the Tuwahi area, opposite the military police camp. We have not been able to visit him since his arrest, we have not been able to get food or clothes into him, and in the last attempt to visit him we have not been allowed to bring in some basic needs of his, and we do not know until this moment why he was arrested by those forces.

He adds: "I have submitted a number of complaints to the judges, prosecutors and the Criminal Prosecutor's Office, but I have not received any positive feedback on the case of my abducted son. The Criminal Prosecutor's Office has issued an order to those forces to expedite the investigation, but the counter-terrorism forces and the storm brigade have not responded to the prosecution order until this moment. "The abductee's father continued: "My son was subjected to systematic and severe torture so that he could not rise up, and we also received information that he was physically disabled as a result of torture by investigators in order to extract information from him during the investigation." Adding: "They have not allowed me to visit him since his arrest, although we have handed them an official memorandum from the Coalition Legal Counsel, which allows us to visit him, check on him and forward the evidence file to the prosecution, but that request has been blocked and has not been implemented to this day."

The abductee's father said: "I have reached out to Judge Yahya Al-Mafalhi, who is the chairman of the National Committee for the Enforced Disappearance. I have also obtained notes from the Chief Criminal Prosecutor, the Director of Security of Aden and the Legal Adviser to the Coalition Support Brigades, and instructions from the Attorney-General to deal with my son's case. However, those forces are stalling the implementation of those directives without legal justification and without any movement from them.

Mohamed's father concluded by saying: "My son was accused of having contact with legitimate forces and they found in his phone proof of that, and an investigator named Abu Saqqar called me from my son's phone and told me to bring the $2,000 that my son had in the house, or they'd break into the house and take it by force, knowing that it was my son’s saving after selling a piece of land as he was planning to marry and with my great fear for my home and my family, I went in with the required amount, and I was admitted to the counter-terrorism complex blindfolded, and they told me that my son was working as a spy to gather information about the transitional forces. The money was taken from me and they didn't allow me to see him or talk to him. "

SAM stresses that the testimony it has heard in addition to the body of documents obtained and examined by relatives of the abductees clearly demonstrates the deliberate violation and abuse of the rights of civilians by members of the Transitional Council without any legal justification, noting that the silence of law enforcement authorities in Yemen has helped those forces to continue their violations, in particular the passive role of the prosecutor in dealing with cases of abductees who have been detained for months with no prosecution or charges.

 On 6 February 2021, Mohamed Walid Ali was arrested by the Transitional Anti-Terrorist Force after raiding his home in the Al -Mualla district at 4 a.m., without any legal justification or judicial orders. The victim holds a Bachelor of Media and Press with distinction and works for Aden TV, as an information coordinator for the ministry of the Interior and as a presenter. His arrest  comes against the backdrop of the explosion that targeted Akram al - Awthali, commander of the emergency battalion in Al-Mualla district.

In May 2021, the young man Hamza Ali Mohyeddin Ali, 20, from Caltex crossroad, was arrested by masked soldiers in white clothes, who summoned him from among his friends while he was handing out Iftar meals to passers-by. According to a statement attributed to the victim's family, Hamza is detained by the security department, without further details. SAM said that enforced disappearance occurs under international human rights law, when the authorities detain a person, deny detention, and refuse to disclose his fate or whereabouts. Disappeared persons are often subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment, especially when held outside formal detention facilities, such as police detention centres and prisons.

SAM concluded by calling on the Transitional Council to release all detainees and to bring its forces to account and investigate their violations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, stressing that the international community's negative attitude and continued silence constituted an implicit cover for the parties to the conflict in Yemen to continue their violations against civilians.