Aussie Muslimah Spat On By Yemeni Police - AussieMuslims.com - Home of Australian Muslims

as was posted here ... Aussie Muslimah Spat On By Yemeni Police - AussieMuslims.com - Home of Australian Muslims

SYDNEY mother Shyloh Giddins was interrogated for 12 hours at a time, spat on and called a "dog" by Yemeni secret police.

A source close to the family revealed that Ms Giddins had been taken to El Markzi prison, a jail used by Yemen's feared political security organisation and interrogated for days before being returned to a woman's prison in the capital city of Sanaa.

"She was interrogated a number of times for up to 12 hours at a time," the family source said. "On one occasion they had her standing up all day until she collapsed, they were spitting on her and calling her a dog."

Ms Giddins has arrived home and is staying in south-western Sydney after being locked up in a squalid cell for a month. She and her children, Aminah, 4, and Omar, 7, flew in on Saturday night. They were met by a female relative and Ms Giddins's Australian lawyer during her detention, Stephen Hopper.

Ms Giddins, who was wearing a burqa, and her children then visited her parents, who had driven to Sydney to meet her.

"She's well and the children are well. They're glad to be out of detention," Mr Hopper said..

Ms Giddins released a statement last night in which she thanked all the people who helped in her release from prison.

"I have not broken any law either in Yemen or in Australia and don't really know why all this has happened," she said.

Ms Giddins moved to Yemen in late 2006, two years after her husband, Mohammed "Mick" Touma, who was an associate of the Darwiche crime family, disappeared. Touma was facing gun charges and was wanted in connection with the murder of a Darwiche rival, Ahmed Fahda, in 2003. He remains on the run.

Ms Giddins lived in Yemen for four years, teaching English at a Sanaa university and learning Arabic. Then, on April 10, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith, cancelled her passport at the request of the chief of ASIO, David Irvine. "ASIO assesses Giddins has an extremist interpretation of Islam and her activities in Yemen are prejudicial to security", a letter to Mr Hopper said.

As a result of information possibly provided by Australian intelligence agencies via the FBI – which has an office in Sanaa – Ms Giddins was arrested by Yemeni secret police last month. Her children were kept under house arrest in the family's apartment.