AP Exclusive: Tales of Abuse, Forced Confessions in Guantanamo Testimonies

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBL1HZ0D9E.html

LONDON (AP) - One Guantanamo prisoner told a military panel that American troops beat him so badly he wets his pants now. Another detainee claimed U.S. troops stripped prisoners in Afghanistan and intimidated them with dogs so they would admit to militant activity.

Tales of alleged abuse and forced confessions are among some 1,000 pages of tribunal transcripts the U.S. government released to The Associated Press under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit - the second batch of documents the AP has received in 10 days.

The testimonies offer a glimpse into the secretive world of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where about 520 men from 40 countries remain held, accused of having links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. Many have been held for three years.

Whether the stories are true may never be known. And it wasn't immediately clear how many abuse allegations had been logged from the tribunals or how many of them had been investigated. Dozens of complaints have surfaced from detention missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo, but the government couldn't offer a breakdown Monday.

[SpiralHawk]

1. BushCo equals torture and propaganda

All the time. How ugly they are, and how ugly they are making America.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Some of those confessions were used to indict people in the US

Be careful, we may find ourselves detained by Homeland SS on the basis of a Guantanamo confession.

[merwin]

3. "Whether the stories are true may never be known". That's a bunch of bull

shit. If 1 or 2 people were saying it, maybe. But when hundreds of detainees are alleging abuse, it happened. Period.