PAKISTAN, May 19 (Islamonline.net & News Agencies) - A Pakistani released from the United States' detention camp on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba said Monday, May 19, that most of the 600-plus prisoners still held there on suspicion of al-Qaeda links had become mentally disturbed.

"The majority of prisoners in Camp X-Ray are not even familiar with the name al-Qaeda," Shah Muhammad, 23, said in his home village of Alladhand Dheray in Dir district, some 20 kilometers from the border with Afghanistan in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"Most of them are in a critical condition mentally and have become mentally deranged."

Muhammad was released earlier this month from Camp X-Ray, the U.S. naval base prison in Cuba, with two other Pakistanis, Jehan Wali and Sahibzada Usman Ali, and handed over to Pakistani authorities May 8. He returned to his home Friday.

"Jehan Wali has not talked to anyone for the past eight months," Muhammad said of his fellow detainee.

A former baker, Muhammad was one of an estimated 6,000 Pakistanis who flowed over the border into Afghanistan to defend the Taliban against the United States-led military onslaught in October 2001.

He said he was captured in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in November 2001 and was handed over to U.S. troops, who flew them to Guantanamo Bay after first sensorily depriving them.

"Before boarding the plane our hands and feet were tied and duct tape was stuck across our mouths, black visors were placed on our eyes and devices were shoved into ears. Our hair and beards were shaved off," Muhammad said.

"After an 18-hour journey in this condition we were shoved like animals into cages."

For the first month the prisoners were not allowed to talk to each other and azan, the Muslim calls to prayer, were banned, he recalled.

However he was not prevented from offering prayers. He alleged that U.S. guards tortured the detainees.

"For several months prisoners were tortured frequently. Later, after the Red Cross intervened, the torture was limited to interrogation sessions and the bans on azan and talking to each other were lifted.

"After investigations were completed and we were found innocent, we were treated well and given good food and other concessions."

Muhammad is considering suing the U.S. government.

"The American government without any proof or justification kept me imprisoned for 18 months. The U.S. should compensate me for this loss of freedom," he said.

Another 54 Pakistanis are among some 650 prisoners from 40 countries still in detention at the open-air, maximum security base.

Denied prisoner of war status by U.S. authorities, none of them have been officially indicted and they have been prevented from meeting attorneys or even receiving visitors.