French Guantanamo Detainees Say Sexually Abused

Two French men released from Guantanamo Bay said they had been physically and sexually abused in the notorious American prison, their lawyers told a leading French paper.

Nizar Sassi and Mourad Benchellali said they were badly treated at the camp the same way Iraqi detainees were treated at Abu Ghraib prison in southern Baghdad, the lawyers were quoted by Liberation as saying on Monday, August 2.

The two lawyers, named by the French daily as Jacques Derbray and William Boudon, said naked women were taken to cells of their two clients to "grip them with shock".

The two 22- and 24- years old also told their attorneys that half naked women interrogated detainees from Middle Eastern origins who were also forced to watch pornographic movies, a practice deemed offensive to Arabs and Muslims.

The former detainees also complained their jailers used Dogs during interrogations conducted under the threat of arms as well, the lawyers said.

The Frenchmen had been detained on arrival in France for questioning by the domestic intelligence service.

Hell

Derbay said both men described their time in Guantanamo as hell.

The two detainees said there were denied access to drugs for treatment from dangerous epidemics as a mean of pressure during investigations.

"If we cooperated with the investigators, drugs are offered as a reward, and if not they were withheld as a punishment," the lawyers quoted their clients as saying.

Furthermore, the two men said they were even forced to take anonymous drugs, which they said caused them suffering from postulates.

They had been also exposed to light all the day, with two 15-minute rest times in a solitary confinement every week, a violent and abuse behavior which "drove some detainees to the verge of madness".

"The American guards were also swearing bad names at us," they said.

Before moving to Guantanamo, the two detainees said they were harshly beaten in Qandahar province in Afghanistan.

Still wearing the white T-shirts, jeans and trainers provided by U.S. authorities on their release, the two were transferred to prisons near Paris after another judge confirmed their detention early Sunday. Their lawyers said the detention was unjustified.

Three other Frenchmen remain in Guantanamo.

Five Britons were released from Guantanamo in March 2003 and freed within a day by British police without charge. A Danish citizen released this year now also lives as a free man.

Amnesty International condemned in May 2004 the US breaches of international law in Guantanamo under the cloak of its so-called global war on terror.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch had further said that US President George W. Bush must promptly investigate and address charges of torture of the Guantanamo detainees or risk criminal prosecution

On December 22, Los Angeles Times reported the US is holding dozens of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay who have no meaningful connection to Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, much to refute claims by the Bush administration. CAIRO (IslamOnline.net)

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-08/02/article06.shtml