Contractor: Marines Abused Me In Custody By Associated Press
06/10/05 "AP" - - ENO, Nev. -- American security contractors were heckled, humiliated and physically abused by U.S. Marines in Iraq while jailed for 72 hours with insurgents, one of the detainees said Friday.
"It was disbelief the whole time. I couldn't believe what was happening," said Matt Raiche, 34, Dayton, Nev., an ex-Marine who was one of 16 American and three Iraqi contractors detained at Camp Fullujah last month.
"I just found it crazy that we were being held with terrorists, that we were put in the same facility with them," he told The Associated Press.
"They were calling us a rogue mercenary team. The actual guards who where coming to pick us up were told to come pick up insurgents," he said in an interview at the Reno office of his lawyer, Mark Schopper.
Defense officials disclosed on Thursday that American and Iraqi security guards for Zapata Engineering based in Charlotte, N.C., were detained for three days by Marines investigating who fired shots fired at civilians and U.S. troops from trucks and SUVs.
The military has denied the contractors were abused. No charges have been filed against any of the contractors, who were separated from the insurgents, according to the military.
Schopper said he did not know if Raiche would seek legal recourse, but said he notified Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., of the alleged abuse.
Gibbons is looking into the matter, his chief of staff said Friday. The Marine Corps told the congressman the contractors who were detained were "treated humanely," Amy Maier said.
The Marines said Thursday that the security contractors were detained after firing on Iraqi civilian cars and U.S. forces in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad.
Spike strips on the road at a nearby observation post stopped the vehicles and Marines detained the contractors at a military detention facility at Camp Fallujah, just outside the city, before releasing them three days later, Marine spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Lapan said.
Company president Manuel Zapata said the only shot fired by his workers was a warning blast after they noticed a vehicle following them.
Raiche said the contractors were stopped and taken into custody May 28. He said a Marine told him shots had been fired, and Raiche told him, "It wasn't us."
Raiche said he was not interrogated -- but several others were -- before they were released June 1 with no official explanation for their detention.
His wife, Amber, wiped away tears as Raiche said he still has nightmares about the 6-by-6 cell.
"I hear the sound of the door squeaking, the door slamming, the bolt going through the lock," said Raiche, who previously lived in Hawthorne and went to high school in Carson City.
Guards intimidated the detainees with dogs, made them strip and told them to wear towels over their heads when they went to the restroom so insurgents in the facility would not recognize and harm them, Raiche said.
One of his colleagues was slammed to the ground by a guard, he said.
"His head bounced off the asphalt." Raiche said. "He told me he heard one guard say to another, 'If he moves, let the dog loose.'"
He said his colleague told him that a guard then reached down and "squeezed his testicles so hard he could barely move."
When Raiche first arrived at the facility, he said a guard ordered him to the ground and put a knee in his back. He said he heard one Marine say, "How does it feel now making that big contractor money?"
At one point, Raiche said a guard told him to put his head down and look down.
"I said, 'I'm an American.' He said, 'I don't give an 'F' who you are, look down,'" he said.
Raiche said the Marines handcuffed them with "zip lock ties." When the detainees complained they were so tight they were losing circulation in their hands, they were cursed and told to shut up, Raiche said.
As they entered the detention facility past a guard tower, he said he heard one "put a round into the chamber of the gun and said, 'Make sure to keep an eye on them because they are highly trained mercenaries.'"
Raiche returned to Reno on Thursday night. He said he had been in Iraq for about two years before returning to Nevada earlier this spring, then headed back to Iraq on May 2.
His wife feared the worst when she hadn't heard from him for several days because they typically talked on the phone every day, she said. She said she was ecstatic when he telephoned upon his release.
"All I can remember him saying is, 'Has anybody told you? Has anybody called you.'"
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
