Released Guantanamo detainee tells of treatment

The father-of-three, from Manchester, told how he was assaulted with fists, feet and batons after refusing a mystery injection. ...The website designer, a convert to Islam, had gone to Pakistan in October 2001, a few weeks after September 11, to study Muslim culture. He accidentally strayed into Afghanistan - believing he was being driven to Turkey - and was arrested as a spy, perhaps because of his British passport. He was held in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and fell into US hands. ...He said detainees were shackled for up to 15 hours at a time in hand and leg cuffs with metal links which cut into the skin. Their "cells" were wire cages with concrete floors and open to the elements - giving no privacy or protection from the rats, snakes and scorpions loose around the American base. He claims punishment beatings were handed out by guards known as the Extreme Reaction Force. They waded into inmates in full riot-gear, raining blows on them. Prisoners faced psychological torture and mind-games in attempts to make them confess to acts they had never committed. Even petty breaches of rules brought severe punishment. Medical treatment was sparse and brutal and amputations of limbs were more drastic than required, claimed Jamal. A diet of foul water and food up to 10 years out-of-date left inmates malnourished. ...Prisoners who had never seen an "unveiled" woman before would be forced to watch as...hookers touched their own naked bodies. The men would return distraught. One said an American girl had smeared menstrual blood across his face in an act of humiliation. ...Jamal said: "I knew of this happening about 10 times. It always seemed to be those who were very young or known to be particularly religious who would be taken away. "I would joke with the other British lads, 'Bring them to us - we'll have them'. It made us laugh. But the Americans obviously knew we wouldn't be shocked by seeing Western women, so they didn't bother. ..."The whole point of Guantanamo was to get to you psychologically. The beatings were not as nearly as bad as the psychological torture - bruises heal after a week - but the other stuff stays with you." ...Jamal said they were told they had no rights. "They actually said that - 'You have no rights here'. After a while, we stopped asking for human rights - we wanted animal rights. In Camp X-Ray my cage was right next to a kennel housing an Alsatian dog. "He had a wooden house with air conditioning and green grass to exercise on. I said to the guards, 'I want his rights' and they replied, 'That dog is member of the US army'. "You would be punished for anything - for having six packets of salt in your cell rather than five, for hanging your towel through the cage if it wasn't wet, even for having your spoon and things lined up in the wrong order."

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