By Noura Wazani
Jordan denied on Monday that authorities arrested and tortured an Iraqi weightlifter who was in Amman to take part in a competition there, as claimed by an Iraqi newspaper the same day.
Babel paper said Kazem Dashi was arrested by the Jordanian secret police last April 13 in Amman where he and his Iraqi club were due to take part in a competition.
Customs officials seized Dashi's passport at the Iraqi-Jordanian border and told him to report to the secret police in Amman, according to Babel.
Dashi said he was then "tortured and humiliated by the Jordanian secret police who asked me questions that had nothing to do with sport."
However, a source at Jordan’s Criminal Investigation Department described the report as “an unsuccessful attempt to mar the Jordanian-Iraqi relations on the part of the paper.”
The official did not deny that Dashi was questioned by security people, but said the sportsman “was drunken,” and statements taken from a man in his conditions must be false and baseless.
"The questions focused on other Iraqi sportsmen as well as state institutions and their locations," Dashi said. "The interrogation, carried out under threats, also comprised questions on my family, my tribe and my military service."
The team informed the Iraqi embassy in Amman of the arrest, Babel said, denouncing it as a "serious precedent contrary to the brotherly relations between the two countries' sportsmen."
The paper added that the Iraqi team had returned to Baghdad but did not specify the length of its stay in Amman or the time Dashi spent in custody.
A source at Jordan’s Ministry of Sports and Youth said sports authorities in the kingdom “had no an idea about the incident.” – Albawaba.com
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
