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Washington has been holding the more than 500 prisoners without charges or trials at Guantanamo for over four years.
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CAIRO,
October 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – An Egyptian man
freed from Guantanamo detention camp has revealed that US guards in
the notorious facility "took pleasure" in torturing the
inmates, who have been held for over four years without charge or
trial.
"The
torture I suffered in the military camp left me crippled in a
wheelchair, " Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Sami Al-Leithy as
telling the Egyptian television Sunday, October 9, night.
"They
used to grab me by the arms and then hurl me on the floor, on my back.
They took pleasure in torturing us," he said.
"I
have suffered a fracture in my backbone because of this," he said
as he sat in a wheelchair.
Leithy,
a university professor, was held for four years in the US-run jail at
Guantanamo without any charge before his release and handover to the
Egyptian authorities in early October.
The
US Department of Defence said October 1 it had released him because he
was "found no longer to be an enemy combatant" by a military
tribunal.
"Before
my detention I used to play football and I was in good health,"
he said, showing medical certificates attesting to his present
condition.
Leithy
charged that his interrogators "used to point a harsh light at us
during questioning and would beat anyone who tried to close his
eyes".
"They
would ask our opinion on US policies and would hit violently those who
were against it or push their heads down on the floor with their
boots," he added.
"D"
Cells
According
to him, cells in Guantanamo are categorized "A" to
"D", with the best ones given to those who cooperated with
the authorities.
Prisoners
held in "A" cells had three meals a day, two blankets, a
toothbrush, toothpaste and soap.
"These
perks diminished until they disappeared in the worst cells, the
'D'," he said.
Speaking
in classical Arabic rather than colloquial Egyptian, Leithy recalled
how he left Egypt at the age of 19 to study in Pakistan, where his
brother-in-law, a professor at Al-Azhar Islamic University was
teaching.
He
told the Egyptian TV that he graduated in 1986 from the University of
Islamabad and worked for 10 years in Pakistan.
No
Crime
Unable
to renew his passport at the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan, he said he
headed for Kabul to seek a new one.
He
further said he taught at the University of Kabul and was wounded in
US bombardment of the city in 2001.
He
was hospitalized in the border town of Khosht and tried to escape when
the city also came under US attack but was arrested by the Pakistani
army and handed over to the Americans who in turn took him to
Guantanamo.
"In
2004, I was finally brought before a US military court ... During the
hearing, they refused to remove the shackles I had on my wrists and my
feet and told me I was arrested with 15 other Arabs for having
considered to fight the American army," he said.
In
May, he was finally told he was innocent but kept in detention until
his release in October.
His
brother told the Egyptian TV that he and his family knew nothing of
the whereabouts of Leithy for four years.
Egyptian
Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Gheit said Sunday that four Egyptians are
still held in Guantanamo.
Leithy
is not the only freed Guantanamo prisoner who recalls horrors of
torture in Guantanamo.
The
United States holds more than 500 prisoners at Guantanamo, most of
them were detained in Afghanistan after US-led troops invaded the
country and ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001.
With
detainees held indefinitely without trials, the detention facility has
drawn severe criticism from human rights groups and foreign
governments.
The
New York Times revealed
October 17, 2004 that uncooperative
detainees in Guantanamo were regularly tortured by US guards and
subject to coercive treatment.
Once
calling the prison the “gulag of our time,” Amnesty International
said in a recent report that Guantanamo has become a “symbol of
abuse and represents a system of detention that is betraying the best
US values.”
In
June, 2004 the Human Rights Watch issued a report entitled “The
Road To Abu Ghraib” linking the abuse of detainees in
Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo to the policies adopted by
Bush in his alleged war on terror.
Chief
among the Guantanamo critics are former US presidents Jimmy Carter and
Bill Clinton, who both called on the Bush administration to shut down
the prison to demonstrate to the world America's commitment to human
rights.
