LONDON,
March 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Two of the five
British Guantanamo detainees released recently said they suffered
beatings, humiliation and "horrific treatment" during the
two years jail in the U.S. custody in its base in Guantanamo Bay.
Tarek
Dergoul, 26, and Jamal al-Harith, 37, who were detained for more than
two years without charges were freed along with the other three
released British a few hours after reaching their homeland in Britain,
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Dergoul,
a former care worker from east London, said in a statement issued
through his lawyer that he had endured "botched medical
treatment, interrogation at gunpoint, beatings and inhuman
conditions".
Dergoul's
brief statement said that he had begun to give his family and lawyer
"an account of the horrific things which happened to him" in
U.S. custody.
"Tarek
Dergoul condemns the U.S. and the U.K. governments for these gross
breaches of human rights and demands the immediate release of all the
other detainees at Guantanamo Bay," the statement read.
"Tarek
finds it very difficult to talk about things and his family believe
his mental health has been severely affected by the trauma he has
suffered," it added.
Hell
In Camp X-Ray
Al-Harith,
on his part, said in a newspaper interview published Friday, March 12,
that he had experienced beatings and degrading treatment during his
two-year stay in custody at the notorious camp.
Al-Harith,
a website designer, described in his interview with the Daily
Mirror headlined "My Hell in Camp X-Ray,"
psychological and physical torture he suffered.
"He
has been detained as an innocent person for a period of two years. He
has been treated in a cruel, inhumane and degrading manner," his
lawyer, Robert Lizar, told reporters.
Al-
Harith added that he was regularly manacled for extended periods and
had been beaten by military police and kept in solitary confinement
for a month after he refused a medical injection because guards would
not tell him what it was, AFP added.
"After
a while, we stopped asking for human rights - we wanted animal
rights," he said.
The
Mirror reported that he now stoops because his shackles were
too short.
Al-
Harith, a Muslim convert of Jamaican origin, also told the Mirror
that their American captors regularly humiliated devoutly Muslim
prisoners by bringing prostitutes into the base.
"I
knew of this happening about 10 times. It always seemed to be those
who were very young or known to be particularly religious who would be
taken away," he added.
The
paper added that Al-Harith was arrested in Afghanistan when he went
after the events of September 11 to study the Islamic culture. On his
way back, he hired a driver to reach Turkey when he was arrested on
the Afghani borders for his British passport.
Suing
U.S. & U.K.
To
the further embarrassment of the U.S., the father of a third released
prisoner said he would sue the British and U.S. governments over his
son's two-year incarceration.
Riasoth
Ahmed said his son Ruhal, a 23-year-old student from central England,
had suffered badly during his detention.
Washington
says that those held at the base are "illegal combatants",
and thus not subject to rules governing either civilian or military
prisoners.
Harith
confirmed his claims in ITV1 television program Friday evening, on
which U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed that the charges of
mistreatment were "unlikely" as he believed the U.S. treated
detainees "in a very, very humanitarian way".
"Because
we are Americans, we don't abuse people in our care," Powell
added.
The
British daily the Guardian reported a Pentagon spokeswoman who
described the repeated claims as "simply lies".
The
Guardian, however, reminded Powell that the U.S. authorities
have refused to allow independent human rights observers into the
military base in Cuba.
