NewsMine — security — terror-suspects — coerced-confessions — Viewing Item

Britons held at gitmo offer detailed allegations of abuse Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)    http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/World/guantanamo_bay_abuse_040803-1.html http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/World/guantanamo_bay_abuse_040803-1.html Abuse at Gitmo? Detainees' Account Offers Most Detailed Allegations of Abuse By John Berman Aug. 3, 2004 — Three Britons who were held for more than two years at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay are alleging, in a written account obtained by ABC News, that they were humiliated and brutally beaten while they were in U.S. custody. The three men — Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed — have provided an account that is the most detailed description to date of life inside the prison and issues the first detailed allegations of abuse. The men — who were released from Guantanamo in March and flown home to England, where police freed them without charge — describe an experience of isolation and brutality at the U.S. base. Their account alleges that they were "kept in cages infested with rats." One said he was put in a "cell smeared with excrement." All say they were subjected to beatings. Ahmed claims a guard "kicked me about 20 times to my left thigh and punched me as well. I had a large bruise on my leg and couldn't walk for nearly one month." Iqbal said guards "would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet, and generally disrespect it." The men declined to talk to ABC News directly about their account, but their attorney Gareth Peirce said they hope it illuminates the plight of the 586 detainees still held at Guantanamo. "It's to try to break through that wall of silence, to make a judgment about the legitimacy and legality of what is going on in Guantanamo Bay," Peirce said. Unlike the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, there are no photographs showing the alleged beatings at Guantanamo and no way to independently verify the claims. U.S. military officials today said there is simply no foundation to the men's stories of abuse. They said that while a guard did once kick a Koran, guards are now given extensive training in religious sensitivity and added that conditions in general have greatly improved at Guantanamo. Abuse Yields False Confessions? But the former prisoners say that after a year and a half of confinement, the harsh treatment led them to make false confessions during interrogations. All three admitted to appearing in a video with Osama bin Laden, despite the fact that all three were in England at the time the video was taped, a fact later confirmed by British intelligence. Rasul said, "I was going out of my mind and did not know what was going on. I was desperate for it to end and therefore, eventually, I just gave in and admitted to being in the video." "There is absolutely no doubt that there wasn't a single method that wasn't used to break their will, to make them confess to something they were not guilty of — and all three did," Peirce said. The Pentagon said today it will not comment about what is said in interrogations. After British intelligence confirmed the men were not in the video, all three were flown from Guantanamo Bay to London in March. Within 29 hours, the men were released; the British government said they had no evidence to hold them.

Army intelligence says torture creates bad intelligence { September 6 2006 } British used info gained by torture { March 8 2003 } Britons held at gitmo offer detailed allegations of abuse Britons made false confessions { August 5 2004 } Bush wants to use coerced testimony { September 14 2006 } Canadian forced to confess { November 6 2003 } China rules confessions by torture illegal { April 15 2005 } Cia interrogations lead to questionable confessions Death row convicts confessed under torture released Detainee sent to egypt for torture { January 6 2005 } Detainees told confess or die { July 6 2003 } Documents tell of brutal torture interrogation { August 3 2005 } Effectiveness of interrogations questioned { May 10 2004 } False alqaeda intelligence from harsh interrogation { December 9 2005 } Forced to make false confessions Guantanamo detainee confessed to stop torture { March 31 2007 } Harsh interrogation went beyind fbi standards Interrogation techniques Most iraqi prisoners arrested by mistake No reliability of prisoner interrogation information says DIA { November 7 2005 } Report says men beaten to false confessions { August 5 2004 } Secret cia interrogation center in jordan Shiites tortured sunnis for false confessions { November 16 2005 } Suspects pressured to make false confessions { August 5 2004 } Torture can be used to detain enemies Torture has long history of producing bad information { October 19 2007 } Tunisian made false confession { August 8 2004 } US forces confessions with lions Virginia man says saudis extracted confession through torture Waterboarding elicites false information { November 8 2007 } Files Listed: 30

Correction/submissions

CIA FOIA Archive

National Security Archives

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information, go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purpose of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.