|
Tough tactics used often at Guantanamo
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-10-17 10:15
Uncooperative Guantanamo Bay detainees were regularly subjected to highly
abusive treatment over a long period of time, unidentified guards at the U.S.
military base, intelligence agents and others who worked in the prison told The
New York Times.
U.S. military officials have long maintained such treatment had occurred in
isolated cases and was not common.
Prisoners at the Cuban base include those captured in
Afghanistan and Iraq and suspected of association with or membership in
extremist organizations. Human rights groups have criticized the United States
for indefinitely detaining prisoners at the base, most without charges or legal
representation.
Earlier this year, photographs of U.S. personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners
at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad generated outrage around the world.
The Times reported in its Sunday editions that prisoners
at Guantanamo deemed uncooperative were stripped to their underwear, shackled
hand and foot to a bolt in the floor and forced to endure strobe lights and loud
music played from close loudspeakers, while the air conditioning was turned up
to maximum levels for periods as long as 14 hours.
The treatment was described to the
newspaper by a military official who said he witnessed the procedure and others
who said they participated in the techniques, all of whom spoke on condition of
anonymity.
"It fried them," the newspaper quoted the official as saying. The
unidentified official told the newspaper he spoke because of anger over the
treatment of the prisoners.
Pentagon officials would not comment on the details of
the Guantanamo allegations, the Times said.
The Defense Department said in a statement quoted by the
Times that the military was providing a "safe, humane and professional detention
operation at Guantanamo."
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top World
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
