A detainee is shown resting inside his cell in Camp Delta at Guantanamo in June 2004. Torture victim sues Obama administration over `Kafkaesque nightmare'BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
In a first for a former Guantánamo captive freed by a federal judge, a Syrian man now living in Europe is suing the U.S. government for damages from what he calls a ``Kafkaesque nightmare.''
The 44-page lawsuit by Abdul Razak al Janko, 32, described a decade-long odyssey of detention -- first in Taliban-era Afghanistan, where he was tortured as an alleged pro-American Israeli spy, and later in U.S. military prisons that ignored or misdiagnosed his history as a torture victim.
In addition, Janko alleges that U.S. soldiers urinated on him on his May 2002 arrival at Guantánamo, where he was subsequently subjected to solitary confinement and sleep deprivation. and beaten by a rapid-reaction force. He said he attempted to commit suicide 17 times in despair.
President Barack Obama's administration had no comment.
``We're reviewing the suit and will respond in court,'' said Dean Boyd, spokesman for the Justice Department's National Security Division.