U.S. forces abuse and torture Kuwaiti prisoners

Al-Jazeera | February 8 2005

Tom Wilner, a human rights lawyer, representing 11 Kuwaiti detainees held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, accused the U.S. forces on Monday of abusing and torturing several Kuwaiti prisoners by beating them with chains, sodomizing them and giving them electrical shocks.

"These are classic stories of men who ended up in Guantanamo by mistake," charged attorney Tom Wilner.

Mr. Wilner detailed the abuses in notes after he met with his clients last month.

In the notes, declassified by the U.S. government, the lawyer detailed his conversations with six of the men. He also said the another five detainees have complained about the same treatment.

The worst of those abuse cases occurred at U.S. detention facilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan before the Kuwaiti men were transferred to Guantanamo.

"All of them were hung from their wrists and beaten, sometimes beaten with chains. At least one was hung upside from his ankles and beaten. They were all beaten, they said, until they would pass out," Wilner said.

"They were stripped naked and kept naked for extended periods of time. They were taunted while naked by female guards. At least one of them was sodomized. At least two of them were subjected to electric shocks while hanging from their wrists," Wilner added.

Mocked for being a Muslim

"In the original prisons in Pakistan and Afghanistan and at Guantanamo, the most disturbing thing to most of them was religious humiliation. They were mocked for being Muslims," the lawyer said.

"Both there and at Guantanamo, their Qurans were taken, thrown on the floor, stepped on, thrown in the toilets. Their body hair and head hair would be shaved, and crosses would be shaved into it," Wilner added.

Mr. Wilner also said that the men were forced to make "false confessions" to having a links to the Taliban regime or al Qaeda network to stop the torture. He said one prisoner "specifically said to me, 'Look, when this is happening, you tell them what they want to hear to make them stop."'

According to Wilner's notes, one of the detainees said: "The American soldiers kept saying, 'Are you Taliban, or are you al-Qaida?' 'Are you Taliban or al-Qaida!' They kept hitting me, so eventually I said I was a member of the Taliban."

Although most of the 11 Kuwaitis said that physical abuse stopped once they arrived at Guantanamo, detainees were "very badly beaten up" and placed in painful positions, and at least one of the detainees was bent over a table and threatened with sodomy, Wilner said.

"At Guantanamo, the physical abuse - at least for Kuwaitis - has stopped, but there has been a switch to mental torture," Mr. Wilner in a conference call from Washington, discussing recently declassified notes on his meetings with the detainees.

However, Maj. Michael Shavers, a Pentagon spokesman, maintains that the U.S. policy "condemns and prohibits torture" and that "credible allegations" of illegal conduct by U.S. personnel are taken seriously and investigated.

"I think that Guantanamo is a stain on the reputation of the United States, a stain on the honor of our nation," Wilner said.

Currently, the United States holds about 545 foreign detainees at Guantanamo, most of which are being held without charges.

The United States has designated those detainees as "enemy combatants" and denied them prisoner of war status, which gives them certain rights under international law.

The U.S. has been facing mounting international criticism for its treatment of detainees held at Guantanamo. Also FBI memos that were recently made public accused Pentagon interrogators of using "torture techniques."