Riad’s story: 14 years of horror and pain in Khiam hellhole

The soft unassuming tones of Riad Kalakish contrast with his chilling tale of how "Israeli" officials at Khiam prison ordered the "Israeli"-allied guards to gas rebelling prisoners in their cells, killing two inmates.
When the detainees were gassed in 1989, Riad was three years into his imprisonment. The polite, neatly dressed 33-year-old was to spend a further 11 years locked up before his release last week along with the remaining detainees when the prison was stormed by hundreds of Khiam people.
During his 14 years in detention, Riad said he was repeatedly beaten, drenched in hot and cold water, tortured with electrical wires attached to his earlobes and genitals, starved and even sodomized with a wooden baton. The "Israeli" proxy guards carried out the brutal torture under orders from "Israeli" security personnel, members of the General Security Service (GSS), who ran the interrogations.
The appalling conditions under which the inmates were forced to live sparked three days of rioting in 1989. Riad said that acting on the instructions of their "Israeli" superiors, the guards flung gas canisters into the dank confines of the cell blocks to subdue the rioters.
“Everyone began screaming as the gas reached them, then there was a hush,” Riad said. He added that the detainees began to shake uncontrollably as the gas took effect.
The sudden silence from the cells apparently panicked the guards outside the blocks. They smashed the windows to allow the gas to escape.
Two detainees choked to death. Their bodies were taken to Marjeyoun hospital along with 12 inmates requiring treatment from the effects of the gas.
Riad said that Ahmad Fakhoury, who was the military head of the jail, told the prisoners that those harmed by the gas were suffering from allergies.
“Fakhoury told us that there was very little gas in the canisters. We told him that they had killed two of us and wanted to kill us all. Fakhoury denied this and said the two men were being treated in hospital.”
The prisoners taken to Marjeyoun hospital actually overheard the militia's guards blaming the doctors for the two deaths.
Riad’s ordeal began in 1986 when he was snatched from the village of Shaqra while visiting his grandfather. The 19-year-old was not a member of Hizbullah although his two brothers were resistance fighters.
He was taken to Khiam in the trunk of a car and was interrogated and tortured for two months. “They began by repeatedly jabbing a screwdriver into my neck, kicking me in the shins and punching me in the chest. Several ribs were broken,” Riad said.
The interrogators questioned him about his association with Hizbullah and whether he knew of any members of the resistance living in the village of Dibbine just north of Marjeyoun in the occupation zone.
Riad was given no food or water and would be shaken awake if he fell asleep.
“Assad Sayed from Qlaya was the worst torturer,” he said. “If he wanted to hit you, he would do it as hard as possible. He left the militia in 1992 and now lives in Sweden.”
The interrogations were conducted by "Israeli" GSS agents. "Israel" has always denied responsibility for the running of Khiam prison, arguing that the militia it trained, armed and paid had sole jurisdiction.
“The "Israelis" did the questioning, the militiamen did the hitting,” Riad said. He could remember the codenames of some of his "Israeli" interrogators: Abu Dib, Jackie, Abu Nabil and Elie. The "Israeli" GSS traditionally adopt Arab nicknames.
Sometimes a cotton bag was pulled over his head during interrogations. But Riad knew "Israelis" were present in the room from the Hebrew being spoken among themselves and the accented Arabic in which they addressed him.
“Elie was the worst "Israeli". A giant over 2 meters tall, he used to grab me, throw me against a wall and hit me,” Riad said.
He said that some prisoners, including himself, were sodomized with wooden batons.
He was tortured for three days with electricity. Wires were attached to his ear lobes and the tip of his penis. Shocks were delivered every 15 minutes using an old field telephone.
“They’d wind the handle and it would send painful jolts through my body,” Riad said. “The pain was so intense I began bleeding from my penis.”
He was confined to a room barely 1 meter square, wrists bound and tied to his ankles. He spent 15 days enduring the stifling heat of the cell.
The conditions the prisoners endured were pitiful. Each cell contained four detainees who were forced to sleep on the filthy cement floor, their shoes served as pillows. The toilet was a bucket that was only emptied every two days.
They were allowed a brief shower once every fortnight and exercise periods lasted around 10 minutes a week in an open-air courtyard.
To break the monotony, the prisoners would make home-made ink by soaking processed cheese wrappers in cups of water. They used the red ink to write verses from the Koran which they would then read to each other, attempting to draw comfort from the words.
In 1995, the International Committee for the Red Cross visited the prison. Conditions improved considerably. Showers, beds and sinks were fitted into all the cells and relatives were allowed to visit.
As the deadline for "Israel's" withdrawal approached, the militiamen began treating the detainees a little better.
“They were scared of what we would do to them after the "Israelis" had gone,” Riad said.
The dramatic storming of the prison last week in which all the detainees were released came as a total surprise.
“Looking through my cell window I could see the guards gathering in the center of the prison,” he recalled. “In the distance we could hear chants of ‘Allahu Ahkbar.’ The chants grew louder and louder.”
When the crowd reached the jail, they told the guards inside to open the gate or it would be broken in.
“The guards fired shots in the air and the crowd began chanting ‘Allahu Ahkbar’ again. Then we answered their cries with chants of our own.”
The collaborators asked to be allowed to leave the prison in peace. “The militia left, holding their guns but hysterical with fear,” Riad said. The crowd surged into the prison blocks and smashed open the cells.
“It was only when we were outside that I understood that we were really free. I felt as though I had been born again.”
For someone who has endured and survived such terrible treatment over such a long period of time, Riad harbors little resentment for his torturers.
If he met the "Israeli" interrogator Elie again, Riad said, “I would forgive him.”
“What happened to me is in the past. If Elie and the others want to become better people and stop doing these wicked things then God will help them. God will judge Elie, not me.”

The Daily Star, 31-5-2000.