Arkan Mohammed Ali is a 26-year-old Iraqi citizen who was detained by the U.S. military at various locations in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib prison. Ali was detained for almost one year, from July 2003 to June 2004. While in custody, Ali was tortured and subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment, including severe beatings to the point of unconsciousness, stabbing and mutilation, isolation while naked and hooded in a coffin-like box, mock execution and death threats.

Military personnel severely beat Ali during interrogations, sometimes leaving him unconscious. U.S. forces stabbed Ali, shocked him with a small metal device, and urinated on him to humiliate and degrade him. He was repeatedly locked in a wooden coffin-like box for several days, sometimes after having been stripped naked and left with a hood tied over his head. On other occasions, Ali was kept in a “silent tent” in which he was denied sleep for days at a time. When it appeared as though he might be falling asleep, guards would drag Ali facedown along the ground and severely beat him.

Ali was also repeatedly threatened and subjected to psychological intimidation while in custody. U.S. military personnel made multiple death threats against Ali, including threatening to run him and other detainees down with a large military vehicle and brandishing guns and swords and threatening to slaughter him. Soldiers also threatened to transfer Ali to Guantánamo, where he was told soldiers could kill detainees with impunity.

Upon Ali's release, an American official threatened him by telling him that if he ever reported or discussed the abuse he and others suffered in detention, the United States government would find him and he would never see his family again.