May 25, 2004
THE WORLD
Ex-Inmate Alleges U.S. Abuse at Guantanamo
A Briton held for two years says prisoners were brutally beaten and sexually humiliated.
By Sebastian Rotella, Times Staff Writer
MANCHESTER, England — A Briton who spent two years in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, accused his American captors of subjecting him and other inmates to a catalog of brutality: beatings, forced injections, sleep deprivation and shackling in painful positions.
Jamal Harith, 37, described how he endured a beating in which a guard jumped up and down on his legs when he resisted an injection of an unknown drug, one of 10 such injections that left him feeling woozy and disoriented. He said interrogators forced him to spend long periods in painful positions on his knees or bound in chains that cut into his skin. On some days, according to his account, guards chained him to the floor for up to 15 hours in an interrogation room with cold air blowing in, forcing him to urinate on himself.
(snip)
Harith said he witnessed dozens of beatings inflicted by a team of guards known as the Extreme Reaction Force. A guard with a video camera often taped the incidents, he said. Inmates suffered broken arms and legs, and bloodied and swollen faces, he said.
Harith's account of conditions at Guantanamo echoed some of the reports of abuse at U.S. detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. He spoke with The Times last week in one of his first interviews with a U.S. newspaper.
(snip/...)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gitmo25may25,1,2082561.story?coll=la-home-headlines(Free registration required)
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
