BANGKOK, Thailand -- The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency may have used Bangkok's former Don Muang International Airport as its secret prison to torture a suspected Muslim terrorist, the first time a specific location has ever been described within Thailand, according to statements by the Libyan who survived.
It was impossible to immediately confirm Abdel Hakim Belhaj's allegations of being "hung," "injected," and refrigerated with "ice" at the airport, but if true, it is the first description of any site in Thailand pinpointed by a prisoner held the CIA.
Thai officials in this Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian country have consistently denied knowledge of any CIA secret prison.
London's Guardian newspaper reported on Sept. 5, however, that Britain's M16 intelligence agency helped the CIA in March 2004 arrest Mr. Belhaj, who is now a powerful commander in Tripoli for the anti-Moammar Gadhafi transitional government.
"Belhaj was detained by the CIA in Thailand in 2004 following an MI6 tip-off, allegedly tortured, then flown to Tripoli, where he says he suffered years of abuse in one of Muammar Gaddafi's prisons," the Guardian reported.
"MI6 had been able to tell the CIA of his whereabouts, after his associates informed British diplomats in Malaysia that he wished to claim asylum in the UK.
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