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More Britons allege Guantanamo beatings
Three Britons released from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre say they were regularly beaten while in US custody, backing similar allegations by two other British detainees.
| I used to pop down twice a week to get in a few licks, myself... |
Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, friends from the town of Tipton in central England, say they were regularly mistreated from the moment they were handed over to US forces in Afghanistan in late 2001. After being taken to a US detention centre in the Afghan city of Kandahar, they were forced to kneel bent forwards for hours with their foreheads touching the ground, Mr Rasul told The Observer newspaper. "I lifted my head up slightly because I was really in pain. The sergeant came up behind me, kicked my legs from underneath me, then knelt on my back," he said. "They took me outside and searched me while one man was sitting on me, kicking and punching."
The three childhood friends, aged between 22 and 26, say they had gone to Pakistan for Mr Iqbal's wedding, arranged by his family, before going into Afghanistan to help arrange humanitarian aid.
| "Ma'am, we're here with the Humanitarian Aid NGO. Here's your arms and ammunition. And, oh yeah. Here's some crackers." |
There they were captured by the US-backed Northern Alliance and almost died after hundreds of prisoners were forced into lorry containers, the majority of whom suffocated.
| Who the hell wrote this? The shipping containers would have been after the siege of Konduz. The majority didn't suffocate, unfortunately. |
The trio's allegations of US mistreatment follow similar claims made earlier this week by two other British returnees. Tarek Dergoul, a 26-year-old former care worker from east London, said he had endured "botched medical treatment, interrogation at gunpoint, beatings and inhuman conditions". Another released Briton, 37-year-old website designer Jamal al-Harith, said in a newspaper interview that he had experienced beatings and degrading treatment during his two years at the jail.
| Tell 'em about the hookers, Jamal... |
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told a British television program that also interviewed Mr Harith that the charges are "unlikely". The five British men flew home on Tuesday from Camp Delta, the high-security camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where the United States is holding about 650 suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Despite their lengthy detention and although four of the men were briefly held by British police when they returned, none has been charged with any crimes.
Posted by: Fred 2004-03-14 |
