Britain, US face new allegations of prisoner abuses

Britain and the United States are facing fresh allegations of prisoner abuses at Guantanamo Bay after three former British detainees claimed that they were repeatedly abused during their detention at the US naval base in Cuba, the Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday.

Details of the experiences of Rhuhel Ahmed, Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal were disclosed by the paper on Wednesday and would be formally released in the United States later in the day.

The allegations have been contained in a new dossier detailing repeated beatings and humiliation suffered by the three detainees who were captured in Afghanistan, then held at Guantanamo Bay for two years, before being released in March without charge.

Ahmed claimed in the 115-page dossier that shortly after his capture in November 2001, a British SAS special forces soldier interrogated him for three hours while an American colleague pointed a gun at him and threatened to shoot him.

The three men also alleged that they were repeatedly beaten, shackled in painful positions during interrogations and subjected to sleep deprivation.

In an echo of the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad which shamed the US government, the three Britons said they were photographed naked and subjected to anal searches unnecessarily, after being shackled for hours.

The three also alleged complicity by Britain in their treatment,challenging the claim by the British Foreign Office that none of the British detainees alleged mistreatment to British officials who visited them at Guantanamo, or following their release.

Iqbal said a British embassy official took down a two-page listof alleged abuses, while the two others say they made their complaints orally.

Nine Britons were imprisoned in Guantanamo without charge or access to a lawyer. Ahmed, Rasul and Iqbal were among five released detainees in March, who were questioned on arrival in Britain before being released.

The British government is still in discussions with Washington over the detention of four other Britons at the US base. (Xinhuanet)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-08/04/content_1711060.htm