Guantanamo prisoner records horrors of detention
- From: steward237@xxxxxxx
- Date: 14 Jan 2006 07:46:16 -0800
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Daily Times, Pakistan
WASHINGTON: A man now detained at Guantanamo has given a harrowing
account of his treatment at the hands of his captors and keepers,
reported Amnesty International.
A report released by Amnesty to mark the fourth anniversary of the
transfer of detainees to the notorious camp maintained by the United
States on leased Cuban territory, includes an account provided by Saudi
detainee Jumah al-Dossari's civilian lawyer. The first person account
was written in longhand in July 2005 by the still-imprisoned Jumah
al-Dossari. He writes, "I am writing the story of what I have
suffered from the day I was kidnapped on the Pakistani border and sold
to American troops until now and my being in Guantanamo, Cuba. What I
will write here is not a flight of fancy or a moment of madness; what I
will write here are the established facts and events agreed upon by
detainees who were eyewitnesses to them, representatives of the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as well as soldiers,
investigators and interpreters."
Al-Dossari writes that he passed through several small jails where
there was a lot of abuse. "I had previously met several people when I
was on the border, they were of different nationalities. They had left
Afghanistan and the Pakistan Army abused us and gave us the worst food.
They put me in a cell measuring four metres by four metres in which
there were 59 prisoners without mattresses, blankets or a bathroom;
there was only one bucket in the cell for everyone to relieve
themselves in without a screen. They stole any passports from prisoners
who were of many nationalities and also abused them. They abused me
personally and beat me several times during investigations. The worst
tribulation for us was when they transported us from one place to
another: they would tie us up in the most savage way, so much so that
some of us got gangrenous fingers and our hands and feet swelled and
turned blue. They would tie us up for long periods of time in military
trucks, sometimes from daybreak until night, in addition to the hours
that they spent transporting us in trucks."
Finally, the group of prisoners arrived at the Kohat airport where an
American military plane, American soldiers and an American interpreter
who spoke Arabic were waiting for them. "They took one by one and
handed us over to the American soldiers. The deal was done and they
sold us for a few dollars and they were not interested in us," he
adds.
According to al-Dossari, there were 30 of them, whom the soldiers
mistreated. They beat them and took their pictures. They also kicked
him in the stomach after he complained of pain. The plane landed at
Kandhar after midnight. This happened in January 2002. There was even
worse treatment for them in store. He was taken in to face two
interrogators. The beatings and interrogations continued. He was asked
to confess that he was a terrorist. He was in the third group to be
moved to Guantanamo. They were put in cages and told not to talk or
even touch the mesh. To relieve themselves, they had to be taken out.
There was no privacy. Al-Dossari says one detainee by the name of Abdul
Aziz Al-Masri was ill in hospital where beaten up in front of the
doctors and nurses. His injuries were excessive and caused his spine to
break. He is now hemiplegic. At the end of 2003, al-Dossari writes
during an interrogation session, the Quran was desecrated and he was
told that "this is a holy war between the star of David and the cross
against the crescent." By then Camp 5 had been constructed where he
was taken and put in solitary. He says his state of health has worsened
and he falls and faints every day. On 12 June he was given a plate of
food with a dead scorpion on it. "Since the day that they threatened
until now, I have been removing insects and dung beetles from the food
and showing it to the soldier who then says, 'Do you want another
plate?'" He has also been on hunger strike
Al-Dossari concludes his account by affirming, "I would thus like to
point out that not all of the soldiers in Guantanamo tortured and
oppressed us. There were some soldiers who treated us humanely, some of
them would cry because of what was happening to us and were embarrassed
by the style of management at the camp and even by the American
government, their lack of justice and oppression of us. To give an
example, when I was in Camp India in Camp Delta and I was being
tortured, an Afro-American came to me. He said sorry to me and gave me
a cup of hot chocolate and some sweet biscuits. When I thanked him, he
said, 'I don't want your thanks. I want you to know that we are not
all bad and we think differently.' When I was talking to a soldier
and I told him what happened to me, he cried and had tears in his eyes.
He was clearly moved. He said sorry to me about what had happened to me
and he also offered me some food. These are examples to show the reader
that there are some soldiers who have humanity, irrespective of their
race, gender or faith."khalid hasan
.
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