From: Jei (jei@cc.hut.fi)
Date: Sat Mar 13 2004 - 03:58:40 MST
You know, due to having grown up admiring the America and especially the
americans' fearless standing for the Human Rights for the people around
the world, and now seeing americans cowed, silent, approving and
perpertrating the worst kind of organized torture of innocent people
around the world in their torture camps... - It really hurts me that
americans as a collective people are allowing this to happen and to
take place in their name and allow their government to do this kind of
atrocities. - I would have never believed you, americans of all people,
would allow *this* to be done in your name.
It is maybe due to this same dissappointment that the people around
theworld are more and more coming to despise americans as neo-nazis.
- If it acts like a nazi, if it talks like a nazi - it is a nazi, so
you call it a nazi, because that is what the americans of today are.
I don't see any americans right now standing up for the rights of
innocents that their troops have slaughtered around the world. Is
it really too much to ask that you afford the same rights to the
rest of us, that you afford your selves?
Right now is when heroes are made. Right now is when you make the difference.
TERROR OF TORTURE IN CUBA CAMP
Mar 12 2004
WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Jamal says: 'I was beaten by special squad in show of
force. Guards chant while kicking and punching"
By Gary Jones and Rosa Prince
JAMAL al-Harith told last night how he suffered a brutal attack by US
military police because he refused to have a mystery injection.
A squad of five men used batons, fists, feet and knees in an assault
that left him with severe bruising.
During the beating the officers barked in automated unison: "Comply,
comply, comply. Do not resist. Do not resist."
Jamal told how the men swung into action after he politely refused a
jab an orderly was trying to give him because he didn't know what it
was and he was fit and healthy.
The squad was from the US military's Extreme Reaction Force, a unit
trained to hand out beatings and known to prisoners at Guantanamo as
ERF.
Jamal said: "I could hear their feet stomping on the ground as they
got closer and closer to my cell. They were given a briefing about me
refusing the injection, then I heard them readying themselves outside.
"I was terrified of what they were going to do. I had seen victims of
ERF being paraded in front of my cell.
"They had been battered and bruised into submission. It was a horrible
sight and a frequent sight."
Jamal, who had been warned by interrogators they would inject him with
drugs if he did not answer their questions, cowered in his cell
awaiting the inevitable.
When it came the full force of heavily protected men in riot gear,
with batons and shields, was used against him.
He said: "They were really gung-ho, hyped up and aggressive. One of
them attacked me really hard and left me with a deep red mark from my
backbone down to my knee. I thought I was bleeding, but it was just
really bad bruising.
"I said to myself, 'You shouldn't have put yourself through that', but
said nothing to the ERFs. I didn't want to give them the satisfaction.
"There is principle and I wasn't going to take the injection so if
they wanted to beat me up that was down to them. This huge black
bruise was there for days after that."
But Jamal's ordeal didn't end there. Half an hour later as he was
recovering, a second ERF squad arrived to dish out more punishment.
HE SAID: "They accused me of biting a military policeman. I said
nothing. I knew it wouldn't help whatever I said.
"They laid into me again. When they were finished I sat down, picked
up the Koran and started reading. Then two guards put me in more
chains and said: 'Will you comply?'"
Jamal was taken to the feared isolation units, nicknamed ISOs, where
those accused of misbehaving are kept in solitary confinement with
just a mat and towel.
A toothbrush, toothpaste and soap, considered "comfort items", were
denied. Jamal admits this was the first time he cried, although he did
not let the guards see he was upset.
He added: "I sobbed a little, twice. Everything had been taken away
from me. All I had was my dignity."
Jamal told of the psychological torture used on those in the isolation
unit by guards who were trying to break their resolve.
Bright lights were left on in their cells overnight making it
impossible to sleep properly. And the rooms were turned very hot in
the day or freezing in the early morning by using fans in the ceiling.
Jamal said: "I'd wake up at 3am shivering like crazy. Just to keep a
little bit warm I'd try to sleep under a metal bed to protect me from
the cold air that was blowing in.
"I'd kept a towel which I hid from a guard to lie on. It wasn't much,
but it made things a bit better."
He was put in the isolation unit twice more. Once when he kept ripping
off wrist bands with his name and the number 490 written on and
another time after guards set up a group of detainees by pretending
some spoons had gone missing. Jamal said: "Non-compliance were the
favourite words thrown at us."
Jamal told how he was interrogated on a regular basis by FBI and CIA
agents and later MI5.
On 40 occasions he was quizzed in chains, which were bolted to the
floor, for up to 12 hours at a time.
Jamal quickly became an expert in their interrogation techniques,
often turning questions on his tormentors.
He said: "They'd ask me the same thing over and over again. Sometimes
I'd say nothing and they asked me why I wasn't responding.
"I'd say: 'You're boring me, ask me something new and I will reply'."
After the Americans failed to glean any information, MI5 officers and
British consular officials interviewed him. On eight or nine occasions
they tried to make him admit he was involved in terrorism.
Jamal said: "They would say: 'Are you a terrorist?' I'd say 'no, get
me out of here'."
Speaking about his British interrogators, Jamal added: "They were a
mixed bunch. There was one young nervous guy who looked about 21. I
called him Youth Training Scheme MI5.
"He wasn't very professional and hadn't even checked out my
background. One of them did say they had run my name and details
through every Interpol check, but could find nothing. I told them
that's because I'm innocent. There's nothing on me. I haven't even got
a parking ticket.
"The young guy got a bit frustrated with me and said: 'Are you trying
to tell me how to do my job?'
"One MI5 guy I just didn't want to talk to. He kept asking me
questions and I'd say 'it's in my file'.
"In the end I said: 'I'm not talking any more.' He replied: 'I've come
all this way from England to see you.' I only saw him for 10 minutes.
He was very red faced and angry."
Jamal said his US interrogators were much meaner in their approach to
questioning.
One told him after not getting the answers he wanted: "We are going to
inject you with drugs."
Jamal said: "They were trying everything they could to frighten me.
They even staged a mock beating up in the next room to me. They
started shouting and pulling a chair around, but I knew there wasn't
anyone there because I couldn't hear any chains clanking on the
floor."
Another officer threatened Jamal with torture to get a confession. He
told him: "Then we will kill your family and you."
Jamal said: "Sometimes they'd joke about what they were going to do to
me. But I was determined to show no weakness. I didn't want to let
them think they were getting to me.
"Other times they'd play a good cop, bad cop routine. I tried to
remain calm, although I was fuming inside. It would been giving in to
have lost my temper and I never did, not once.
"I don't swear and I didn't fight back. It was only on principles that
I stood my ground.
"The mental torture was far tougher than any of the physical
punishments. I knew I was being treated a lot worse than any of the
other detainees. They tried everything to break me.
"Ridiculously, they even accused me of being an MI5 spy.
"I began to tease them a little because it was my way of coping. They
could never work out when I was serious or not.
I HAD three plaits in my beard. I suggested, although I didn't say it,
that it was for three people I had killed during drug deals in Moss
Side, Manchester.
"I was making the whole thing up but they believed me. Next time I saw
an officer he said MI5 had confirmed the story.
"They couldn't get a handle on me and that frustrated them. In the end
one said: 'Who are you?' And I said: 'I've been here for over one a
half years and you're asking who I am?'
"I took a stand against them because what they were doing to me was
barbaric. I wouldn't get down on my knees for the chains to be pulled
around my body because it was demeaning.
"About 20 per cent of us wouldn't co-operate. Eventually they backed
down and we would stand while the guards went on their knees to chain
us up.
"That was a small victory. There weren't many, but they were
memorable. I will cherish them."
Despite the horror, Jamal said there were lighter moments.
One particular interrogation technique amused him. He said: "They
started playing different music to see how I would react.
"They started with country singer Kris Kristofferson which I said I
quite liked. Then some Fleetwood Mac songs.
"They watched my reactions on camera. I just said the music's great
and even started singing along. They didn't play it again."
In the isolation unit, Jamal met for the first time fellow British
detainee Tarek Dergoul.
He said: "He was suave and had a pencil moustache. We had a good chat
about life back in Britain."
Jamal was released on Tuesday after being flown from Cuba to RAF
Northolt, West London.
He arrived back with four other former Guantanamo Bay Britons - Asif
Iqbal and Ruhal Ahmed, both 22, and 26-year-olds Shafiq Rasul and
Tarek.
They were freed on Wednesday night after being quizzed by
anti-terrorist police in London.
Four other British suspects are still being held in Cuba.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw last night said the US was right to keep
the men locked up and the release of the five did not necessarily
prove their innocence.
He added: "The Americans as far as they were concerned had good reason
for detaining them."
Asked whether they were innocent, he replied: "I can't answer that
question, nobody can."
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