Yusuf Hamid, scenes from a memory
Yusuf Hamid was only a teenager – 16 years old – at the time of his capture in 2007. Under
detention, he suffered humiliation and sexual abuse. After five months in Bagram, he was sent to
segregation where he was made to wear only his undergarments while cold air was blasted at him
in the winter. Also made to endure sleep deprivation, if Yusuf accidentally dosed, jail keepers would
deliberately create a racket to rouse him, or douse him in cold water. He also reported that a female
sergeant would enter his cell and touch his genitals. Yusuf also described her beating him, and then
injecting him with a sedative that would make him lose consciousness. He suspected he was raped
during these incidents.
While in solitary confinement, a female US officer would regularly grope me and undress
me. On several occasions, I remember being injected with something and then waking up
later completely naked. She teased me for having a small penis … She used to say things
like ‘what a small thing you have down there’.
Upon his return to Pakistan, Yusuf was jailed again. First, he was detained for three months in
Mohmand Agency where he reported that the political agent demanded 500,000 PKR (USD 3,190)
from his family and threatened him with further imprisonment. He was then jailed in Central
Prison Haripur, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, sentenced for three years because of his failure to pay
the amount. Khan Bahadur, Yusuf’s elder brother, told JPP that as they were poor, they were not
able to pay the money demanded. As a result, Yusuf was sentenced to an additional eighteen
months in Haripur Jail. The mental instability he experienced upon being re-jailed is evident in the
investigator’s description of Yusuf Hamid’s behaviour in Haripur jail:
In 2014, JPP investigators met Yusuf at Central Prison Haripur, a high-security prison guarded by
the army and holding a number of Afghan nationals. The jail was crowded and noisy, but Yusuf and
the investigator were able to meet privately.
JPP investigator, Waqas Aziz, narrates: “When I got inside, Yusuf hugged me and started crying, saying
‘I thought no one would come to see me here or help me.’ Yusuf said his family lives far away in North
Waziristan; his father is very old and the family poor. As Yusuf’s father can’t travel all the way here,
he visited only once. On my way out, Yusuf showed me around the jail like a small kid showing off his
playthings. He was so excited to see me that he didn’t want me to go; he even went to the superintendent
of the jail and introduced us. The superintendent told me that Yusuf was one of the best inmates, taking
care of other prisoners and helping staff with their work around the jail.”
In 2016, Yusuf died from cancer. His illness was discovered while he was in Haripur jail. Here, he
started feeling pain in his left leg, in the area where he had received injections while in Bagram
prison. He was taken for medical tests to Central Jail Peshawar, where cancer detected. Then he
was shifted to Central Jail Ghallanai in Mohmand Agency, imprisoned for another fifteen days, and
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