Tugging at Threads to Unspool Stories of Torture

From The New York Times:

AMMAN, Jordan — The first time the Iraqi Army arrested him, he said, soldiers burst into his shop in Baghdad, dragged him out in handcuffs and a blindfold, and took him to a filthy, overcrowded prison. Beatings, rape, hunger and disease were rampant, and he expected at any moment to be killed. He was held for four months, until December 2008.

During an interview here, the shopkeeper, 35, a balding, stocky man wearing a T-shirt and slacks, was calm and soft-spoken at first, but grew increasingly loud and agitated as he told his story. He described enduring episodes of torture, threats by captors to go to his house and rape his wife, and daily horrors like the suicide of a young prisoner who electrocuted himself with wires from a hot plate after being raped by soldiers. He spoke through an interpreter, and asked to be identified by only his first initial, M., because his relatives were still in Iraq and he feared for their safety. After speaking for an hour, he shook his head and said softly: “What happened is not like what I just said. What happened was much worse.”

More here.