Khaleda Al-Asbahi

"Khaleda Al-Asbahi" in her pentagonism, narrates scenes of Houthi torture of her and other women in secret prisons in Sanaa

The kidnapped "Khaleda Muhammad Al-Asbahi", 55, who was recently released from the prisons of the Houthi group in Sana'a, confirmed during her testimony to Sam's team that she had been kidnapped and her freedom was restricted for more than three years, due to her membership in the General People's Congress.

"Khaleda" indicates that the arrest against her and one of her grandchildren took place on 8/4/2018 in front of the Goetheen Wedding Hall in Sanaa, which is located next to the British University, and she was in a bus at the time on her way back to her home. "I was arrested by 10 people with their faces covered and they were armed, on a bus and a car. At that time, I was with my grandson, and they took me to one of their headquarters, in Dar Salm, and my eyes were covered." She said. She notes that "the complications of the prison increased, as her mental and physical condition became tired and exhausted, as a result of the torture she was subjected to in three prisons where she moved to, throughout the prison term".

She described her condition as having remained for three years of crying, without arousing the pity of the Houthi jailers, and that the first treatment she underwent after her discharge was the treatment of the trachea. "I was beaten, humiliated, threatened, handcuffed, they were taking me out to investigate at 12 at night, and they bring me back at five o'clock at dawn, and tie my eyes," she says. Noting that she was severely b  eaten, "they were slapping me, I was once beaten until I fainted " and continued to describe her tired situation « Imagine when you are alone for three years among masked people, there is no one with you or defending you and no one protects you, I was afraid and worried for three years.

Khaleda Al-Asbahi recalls from prison scenes, that the Houthis came to one of the detainees, a Moroccan woman, who had a gunshot wound to her foot, and that one of the prisoners was Ethiopian. She added, "They used to bring young female prisoners, girls from 12 to 15 years old."

She adds that she was threatened during interrogations, that she had made confessions, and that the Houthis had made her talk about what they wanted, and they were documenting it on camera. She said , "I can not overcome the fear that I lived in prison, even after ten years, they kidnapped me and tortured me and beat me, they made me stand on my feet from 12 to 5 a.m., with my legs without a joint, except the threats we were receiving by electrocution."

Regarding the interrogation sessions that were taking place with her and with other prisoners, Khaleda said, "The sessions started at night, after 12 at night and continued until dawn." She continues about the torture mechanism, It continues about the mechanism of torture «eyes are covered, then they handcuff, and then they make us walk through a stairway until we reach one of the rooms, asking us a question if we do not answer as they want, they start kicking and slapping from everywhere, then we are suspended and forced to stand on one foot, for a long time, with an electric taser». "One of us is in a room with five or six people, and they torture you and you don't know who is torturing you and beating you," she said.

The first prison in which she was admitted is described as being in the Dar Salm area, south of the capital, and it consisted of three buildings, or headquarters where the first being called intelligence, the second being called political security, and the third is the national security. She added, “they bring many people to these headquarters, including young people, and for those who refuse to confess to the charges fabricated to them, they used to bring their families in front of them in order to force them to confess or their relatives will be harmed." When they brought me, "They brought my son and daughter-in-law, my cousin, and my grandchildren. They let me hear them and they used to tell me your son is hanging in the other room."

Khaleda stated that the second headquarters where she was imprisoned was in the 70th area, next to the Mosque of Al-Saleh, and that there I met a Moroccan, Ethiopian, and other Yemeni female prisoners, including Annan, Hind and Hanan, and many others. She added that from time to time, the female prisoners are transferred to one of the headquarters of the Houthi group, which it calls the Central Prison, but it is not the well-known prison belonging to the state, which is in Al-Jaraf area, as it is a central facility for the group,  as she said.

She added that The guards in her last headquarters are among the Houthi female recruits, the Zinnebiat, where they do not reveal their faces, and we do not know their names, the director of this headquarters has an office at the Ministry of Justice, on the second or third floor, named Sultan, I heard them saying that». Khaleda recalls, “Some prisoners find someone who tells them to go to the Ministry of Justice, where the Criminal Investigation Office, which is affiliated to the Ansar Allah group, to a person called Sultan, we used to hear them speak on the phone next to us. As for the first place in which they imprisoned me, there is a director named Ahmed Amer, chief of Jamal Jameel police station.».

She adds in her testimony that she was on hunger strike for two months and five days, and she had one of the prisoners with her called Taqia Naji al-Muayyad, She says that she "was kidnapped a day later and they released us together, I don't know why she was arrested too for no reason, they took her from Haddah, they interrogated her for two days and forced her to sign 13 papers, and I signed more than 15 papers, they don't let you read what's in it, they force you to write confessions and sign them, and then we were forced to confess to them, and in the end we are threatened that if we file a complaint or talk about something that they will publish our fabricated confessions."

And she says «They kidnapped me and accused me, that I am a member of the General People's Congress, they were telling me let "Afash" benefit you, this was the reason for the arrest announced but at the time of the investigation I saw one of them, who had a problem with me that happened in the city of Aden, 17 years ago, This man took money from me, and I filed a lawsuit against him because of his failure to pay the money, and he was imprisoned in Mansoura prison, and he sat 3 years there, and his brother was director of the Lahj Lands Authority at the time, and when he saw me in prison, he told me you locked me up for 3 years, I will lock you up for three years, your country was now my country, and he showed me a card of political security."

Al-Asbahi confirmed that she tried to commit suicide twice, and one time was beaten until she passed out, saying, “After days of the strike in Ramadan, I went up over the library, I was screaming, people, I am kidnapped for two years, so they called the operations department and beat me, and they hanged me, until I lost consciousness."

She reported that she could not see well in one of her eyes, due to the pressure, and that she had become sick with kidneys as a result of polluted water inside the prison. She added, "They put me in a basement where I lived with mice and insects. There was only me, Taqiyya, and men in the second rooms, where we stayed in the same condition for two and a half years. After that, they transferred us to a prison called the reformatory, which has very poor solitary cells that do not have windows."

Khaleda says that the Houthi group housed in the last floor a woman with children to camouflage the detention center, while the prison yard was full of cars, as she believed that it belonged to those who were kidnapped, or who were liquidated and killed, especially since she confirmed the presence of bullets on those cars.

She points out that "I stayed in the last prison for only six months, when I was transferred from the headquarters of Ahmed Amer to the headquarters run by a person called Sultan. Where they brought me into in Muharram and took me out in Rajab."

Khaleda concluded her testimony, “I was preparing before my kidnapping to travel for a foot joint replacement surgery, and this matter is proven in my medical reports. Now I feel that my condition has worsened after what I was subjected to from torture and forcing me to stand on one foot, which increased the pressure on my feet and now I need my joints changed for the severity of the pain that I feel ».