- Confidential papers detailing tribunal hearings held
at Guantanamo Bay have revealed a further raft of allegations of US mistreatment
of detainees held at the detention camp.
-
- Detainees, including Jamil el-Banna, the Jordanian national
who has lived in Britain since 1994 and is still held at the camp, alleged
a range of mistreatment during tribunal hearings. One man said that the
authorities' interrogation practices had rendered him incontinent. Another
alleges that dogs were used as a means of intimidation.
-
- The transcripts of tribunal hearings were released by
the US Department of Defence after an application under the US Freedom
of Information Act by the American news agency Associated Press.
-
- The agency said it had received 1,000 pages of documents
after a lawsuit with the US government. It was not clear whether allegations
of mistreatment shown in transcripts of tribunals had been either logged
or investigated, the news agency said.
-
- In some cases, the tribunal papers showed detainees making
an allegation with no evidence of thorough questioning thereafter. One
detainee, whose name and nationality were blacked out, along with many
of names in the transcripts, said his medical problems from alleged abuse
have not been taken seriously. "Americans hit me and beat me up so
badly I believe I'm sexually dysfunctional," he said.
-
- "I can't control my urination, and sometimes I put
toilet paper down there so I won't wet my pants. I point to where the pain
is. ... I think they take it as a joke and they laugh." The tribunal
president promised to take up the man's medical complaint, but in five
pages of questioning, never brought up the alleged abuse, the agency reported.
-
- Another prisoner said he was abused and forced into making
a confession. "I was in a lot of pain, so I said I had [military]
training. At that point, with all my suffering, if he had asked me if I
was Osama bin Laden, I would have said yes," he said.
-
- A 24-year-old said a US interrogator "threatened
me with a gun to my mouth, to try to make me say something". The tribunal
president asked him about the alleged torture. When he heard it was purportedly
carried out at a US facility in Kabul by an American, he moved on to other
questions, the agency reported.
-
- A military spokeswoman, Captain Beci Brenton, said the
panel was charged with determining whether the men were enemy combatants
- not with investigating abuse allegations, but it was obliged to report
the allegations.
-
- ©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=642873
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