The Very Strange Case of Hussein Ali Sumaida

Ushered into a larger room, Sumaida was ordered to sit on a wooden chair while several plainclothes officials watched. His hands were secured tightly behind his back with a set of metal handcuffs. A middle-aged, stocky, balding man then entered the room and began questioning him in English about his family and personal history.

The interrogation turned violent, Sumaida says, about half an hour later when his inquisitor began peppering him with questions about his relationship with the Mossad and Israeli intelligence operations in Tunisia. “That’s when it start[ed] to get really messy.”

He was struck on the left side of his head and neck when he was unable to answer the questions, paused, or stuttered. The blows, he says, were delivered with an open hand or clenched fist by a young, dark-haired Tunisian official who was sitting in front of him. “[The blows] kept coming. I started crying. At that moment I felt, that’s it . . . I had that feeling that [I] was going to die.” His inquisitors called him a liar and repeatedly taunted him as a “jasous Yehudi” (Jewish spy). Sumaida suffered a broken tooth and he bled from the nose, ear, and mouth. He recalls tasting the warmth of his blood as it congealed inside his cheeks.

Sumaida believes he was questioned for about twelve hours on his first day in detention. He was then thrown into a large street-level cell that featured a small hole carved out in the corner of a concrete floor that served as his lavatory. The cell was littered with graffiti from the Koran. His handcuffs were removed, but he was kicked and spat on. He did not receive a blanket, water, or food.

The following morning, Sumaida was doused with cold water, handcuffed, and taken back for questioning by the same middle-aged official. He was repeatedly beaten and forced to sign several blank documents. “I would have given them anything,” Sumaida says. After another twelve hours of questioning, he was thrown back into the concrete cell and given a bottle of water. On his third day in custody, Sumaida was offered reddish soup in a small metal bowl and a piece of bread. He dabbed his finger in the soup and marked the days of his incarceration on a wall. The questioning and beatings continued.

Alone and feeling hopeless, Sumaida says he attempted suicide on the seventh day of his imprisonment. He had smuggled a small vial containing a liquid chemical disguised as a hand cream in his luggage. (Sumaida used a ruse to get to the seized bags.) He downed the chemical as he sat slumped against a cell wall, and became faint and finally lapsed into unconsciousness as it took effect. He woke in what appeared to be a hospital room. “It was like a dream,” Sumaida says. “I was numb.” He then recalls being dragged back to his cell wearing a white hospital gown.

Then, unexpectedly, after more than a week of being held incommunicado and without charge, he was released. Sumaida is convinced that pressure on the Tunisians from his wife, Amnesty International, and the United Nations brought about his release. “You don’t question these things, you just wait,” Sumaida says.

He was told to walk to a nearby hotel, check in, and wait. His luggage, other belongings, and $3,950 (US) were returned, but he was ordered, he says, to report to the Ministry of the Interior weekly. He was permitted to call his wife. Unable to reach her, he contacted family in Detroit and told them he was okay.

Later, his wife called and the pair had a brief and cryptic conversation. Sumaida instructed his wife to travel to Tunisia with their son immediately. (Sumaida says he was ordered to do this.) A few weeks later, he was provided with valid identification and a home, owned by a senior police officer. Asked why the Tunisian authorities had provided him with valid ID and a home, Sumaida pauses, shrugs his shoulders, and suggests that the Tunisians may have been trying to recruit him.

In early October 2005, Sumaida’s wife and infant son arrived in Tunisia. At the airport, the couple shared a long, tearful embrace. They began to build a new life together in Tunisia. “I had no other choice,” Sumaida says.