Britain checks claims of abuse at Guantanamo Bay: paper

Officials of the British Foreign Office were investigating allegations that US soldiers assaulted and abused British detainees at the US Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, the Independent newspaper reported Sunday.

According to the paper, the Foreign Office has written to the US Defense Ministry after five Britons, detained in the camp for more than two years, were released in March and alleged they were kicked, punched and stood on by guards, interrogated at gunpoint, and taunted by naked female soldiers.

British ministers have asked the US authorities to locate videos which the ex-detainees say were filmed when they were being assaulted by the so-called Immediate Reaction Force, a unit of riot control guards allegedly used as a "punishment squad," the paper said.

British diplomats last month made further formal complaints about the ill treatment of two Britons, Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg, who are in solitary confinement in a secure unit and thought to be suffering from mental illnesses, the paper added.

The British government is still in discussions with Washington over the detention of Abbasi, Begg and two other Britons at the USnaval base since the five were freed without any charge. (Xinhuanet)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-08/01/content_1690072.htm