The Czech aid worker released in February 2017 after being imprisoned for 14 months in Sudan on spying charges has revealed how he was tortured by fellow inmates,.
Petr Jasek explained at a conference in the US organised by charity Voice of the Martyrs that he was treated like a “slave” during his first few months in prison after members of Islamic State, with whom he was imprisoned, found out that he is a Christian.
“I was [made] to wash their clothes, wash all the dishes, and clean the toilet with my bare hands. They were just making fun of me.”
“I did not resist,” he added.
“They became more aggressive. They were inventing ways for how they could [torture] me in a very bad way. Eventually, they decided to do waterboarding to me. It’s a way of torture where a person lays on his back and they cover his mouth and pour water, which gives you the feeling that you are getting drowned. They told me that Czechoslovakia allows the CIA to waterboard Al Qaeda members, which is not true.”
Jasek said that although most of the prison guards were afraid of the extremists, one guard stood up to them and prevented the waterboarding.
“Later on I told the guard that he saved my life, and we became close friends,” Jasek said.
When Jasek was moved to other prisons, he was given the freedom to speak about his Christian faith, the US-based Christian Post reported. In one prison he led church services with the two Sudanese pastors with whom he had been sentenced, Abdumonem Abdumawla and Rev. Hassan Abduraheem Taour.
Jasek said he was imprisoned with “real criminals – murderers, rapists, thieves, drug dealers,” and they responded to his teaching about the Christian faith.
“It was so wonderful to see the changed life of those who dedicated their lives to Christ,” he added.
Jasek was detained in five different prisons before his 23-and-a-half year sentence was cut short following the intervention of the Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek, among others.