Carolin Emcke, a German freelance journalist, wrote about Samir in her recent article entitled In Iraq: The Remains of War, after visiting him at Kirkurk Detention Center in November 2009. She recalls that Samir could "barely walk, dragging his feet feebly forward, wearily, he was as tall as I am, 1,75m and weighs at most 55kg" For Emcke, the whole ‘memory loss' incident would be hard to believe if they did not see Samir's condition for themselves. "He simply can't remember?" she writes, "This is supposed to be the story?" In the end, perhaps it was the "huge scar in the shape of a crescent" on the right side of his head that made his story all that more believable.
"The next thing I know," says Samir "I was arrested with an explosive belt around my waist, and police officers were beating me." Samir Ammar simply cannot remember why he was wrapped in explosives, stressing the fact that "that's all I can remember, I've said that during all the interrogations."
Following the beating by police officers, Samir spent ten days in hospital, and was taken to Kirkurk Detention Center - he was immediately thrown into a barrage of interrogations.
"They beat me," says Samir "...with sticks, cables, they tortured me with electric shocks." Emcke describes Samir stroking his left hand over the scar the right side of his shaven head. According to Emcke, he can only move his left hand, as the other arm lies "limply on his right leg". Samir is resigned to paralysis: "I can't control my right side" he explains.
Who is responsible for his brutal torture? Is Samir a bona fide failed suicide bomber or a young Syrian tangled up in the complexities of war? In any case, Samir has been deserted in Iraq, locked in a prison cell with forty other prisoners for nearly a year now, without contact with his family or even a lawyer to represent him.
The fact is that Samir Ammar does not know who tortured him. He remembers the torturers speaking Arabic and using a small electrical black box they called "the American". The irony is that Samir was in fact interrogated by Americans during his contretemps, but insists that "they never touched me".
At the request of Carolin Emcke, Alkarama submitted the case of Samir Afif Ammar to the Special Rapporteur on Torture on 17 May 2010. Cases such as Samir's shed light on the dark calamity of human rights in Iraq, where torture is commonplace and disappearances are customary.
The number of suicide bombings in Iraq, as reported by the media, has already reached 44 in 2010. Samir Ammar is now not only considered a criminal and a casualty of war, but also a human rights victim. He tells Emcke, albeit in vain, "Why would I do that? I reject suicide bombings. If people want to kill themselves, let them. But don't kill others in the process."
Alkarama does not in any way condone acts of violence, such as suicide bombings, but the fact remains that all counter-terrorism measures must be made in full respect of the States' international human rights obligations. In the case of Samir Ammar, the prohibition of torture is a cornerstone of international human rights law and should never under any circumstances be violated.