TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Ta’aliq — “to hang” in Arabic — is Iraqi slang for the torture device that hoists victims into the air, their hands handcuffed above their heads. Akrab, or “scorpion,” is the more painful version, when the hands are first forced together behind the back.

Elizabeth Tsurkov experienced both, and other excruciating torture, during 2 1/2 years held captive in Iraq by an Iranian-backed militia.

The 38-year-old Israeli-Russian doctoral student at Princeton, who speaks fluent Arabic and has researched the Middle East for over a decade, was studying social political movements in Iraq in March 2023 when she was forced into an SUV, blindfolded, sexually assaulted and beaten, then taken to a torture facility on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Her release in September was announce

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