AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll sits down with ERIC CARVIN to talk about the case of Bilal Hussein, who's been held by the U.S. military for five months.
AP photographer Bilal Hussein. (AP Photo/Jim MacMillan)
AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll. (AP Photo)
For about a year and a half, Bilal Hussein took pictures for The Associated Press from some of the most difficult places in Iraq for anyone -- let alone a journalist -- to do his job.
Ramadi.
Fallujah.
Cities that are familiar to anyone who's been following the fighting in Iraq.
Earlier this year, the Fallujah native was taken into custody by the U.S. military, which cited "imperative reasons of security" under U.N. resolutions. Five months later, the AP has gone public with his case, noting that Hussein is being held without charges and that he hasn't had an opportunity to defend himself in a public hearing.
The AP also reported Sunday that Hussein is one of about 14,000 people being held by the U.S. military in locations around the world, including 13,000 in Iraq. Few of these people are charged with a specific crime or otherwise given an opportunity to argue for their freedom.
So what exactly has Hussein been accused of doing? How is the AP reacting, both as his employer and as the world's largest newsgathering organization?
asap sat down with AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll to find out more.
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How was Hussein taken into custody?
Carroll: We understand that he was arrested on April 12 of this year in a building in Ramadi. There have been slightly different variations of how he was arrested, but we know that to be true: He was arrested in a building in Ramadi at breakfast time with two other people.
What exactly has he been accused of doing?
Carroll: He has not been accused of doing anything specific.
There have been, in the course of our conversations with the U.S. military, scary things said. For example, that he was found with residue that could be considered material that could have been in explosions on his hands. My understanding, from the many correspondents who have worked in Iraq -- including our assistant international editor and our international editor -- is that when you are in an area that blows up as often as Iraq does, and if you are at the scene to report about it, it's very common for that material to be found.
There was another accusation that came along later that he was involved in the kidnapping of two Arab journalists. AP tracked down those journalists and they said that Bilal in fact had helped them and that he was not involved in the kidnapping. More to the point, from our view, is that no one from coalition forces or the U.S. military had ever spoken to them.
What sorts of communication has the AP had with the military and with the U.S. government about this case?
Carroll: We have, from the day he was arrested, communicated with the appropriate U.S. military commanders in Baghdad, which is very standard. When somebody gets picked up, there's an actual group of folks that you call and say, "This is our guy." We also have been in touch regularly with the commanders who run the detention facilities and with the people who would be making a determination about his circumstance.
As it became obvious that we needed more communication from our point of view, we also wrote letters and talked with the appropriate authorities in the Pentagon, and we have also been in touch with the U.S. ambassador's office in Baghdad.
How common is it for AP journalists in Iraq to be detained by the U.S. military?
Carroll: It is not uncommon, particularly if there has been an event or if there has been a long-standing battle and the military is in action in a place, for them to scoop up everybody around in a way that they feel at the time is appropriate. And then we work to say, hey, that guy's a journalist, he really is a journalist.
We understand the military has concerns about not really knowing whether people who are around them in the field are who they say they are. We know that that's a difficulty that they work with and a difficulty that our staffers work with as well. But that system generally works pretty well.
What has Hussein said about his own detention?
Carroll: Not to me personally, but to his lawyer and to others who have visited him: He believes that he was picked up and is being held because of the pictures that he has taken out of Fallujah and Ramadi, which are very difficult cities in a very tough province for the military to control.
It has not been a place where the U.S. military has had an easy time operating. Fallujah is Bilal's hometown -- he grew up there -- and Ramadi is just up the road.
How has Hussein's detention made it more difficult for the AP to cover the area?
Carroll: The biggest impact is that we don't have pictures from Ramadi anymore.
We do have television images from time to time and we do have reporting from Ramadi, but we don't have still images, because everybody in the region knows about Bilal's circumstance -- the Iraqis -- and they are reluctant to go in and work there for fear that they too would be picked up.
We've been unable to persuade anybody else to go back in for now. We think that may change.
If the U.S. military continues to hold Hussein without charges, what would be the next step for the AP?
Carroll: Our hope is that this can be resolved using the systems that are appropriate. That either the evidence is compelling enough that he would be moved through the Iraqi court system and charged, where he has the opportunity to answer those charges. Or that there would be no evidence and he would not be held further.
Indefinite detention is not tolerable.
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Eric Carvin is asap's news editor.
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