A
BRITISH captive freed from Guantanamo Bay today tells the world of its
full horror - and reveals how prostitutes were taken into the camp to
degrade Muslim inmates.
Jamal
al-Harith, 37, who arrived home three days ago after two years of
confinement, is the first detainee to lift the lid on the US regime in
Cuba's Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta.
The
father-of-three, from Manchester, told how he was assaulted with fists,
feet and batons after refusing a mystery injection.
FREEDOM:
Jamal yesterday... but he will never forget camp horror
He said detainees
were shackled for up to 15 hours at a time in hand and leg cuffs with
metal links which cut into the skin.
Their
"cells" were wire cages with concrete floors and open to the elements -
giving no privacy or protection from the rats, snakes and scorpions
loose around the American base.
He
claims punishment beatings were handed out by guards known as the
Extreme Reaction Force. They waded into inmates in full riot-gear,
raining blows on them.
Prisoners
faced psychological torture and mind-games in attempts to make them
confess to acts they had never committed. Even petty breaches of rules
brought severe punishment.
Medical treatment
was sparse and brutal and amputations of limbs were more drastic than
required, claimed Jamal.
A diet of foul
water and food up to 10 years out-of-date left inmates malnourished.
But Jamal's most
shocking disclosure centred on the use of vice girls to torment the
most religiously devout detainees.
Prisoners who had
never seen an "unveiled" woman before would be forced to watch as the
hookers touched their own naked bodies.
The men would
return distraught. One said an American girl had smeared menstrual
blood across his face in an act of humiliation.
Jamal
said: "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.
"I
would joke with the other British lads, 'Bring them to us - we'll have
them'. It made us laugh. But the Americans obviously knew we wouldn't
be shocked by seeing Western women, so they didn't bother.
"It
was a profoundly disturbing experience for these men. They would refuse
to speak about what had happened. It would take perhaps four weeks for
them to tell a friend - and we would shout it out around the whole
block."
Jamal added: "The
whole point of Guantanamo was to get to you psychologically. The
beatings were not as nearly as bad as the psychological torture -
bruises heal after a week - but the other stuff stays with you."
HE
was talking from a secret location after being reunited with his
family. The website designer, a convert to Islam, had gone to Pakistan
in October 2001, a few weeks after September 11, to study Muslim
culture.
He accidentally
strayed into Afghanistan - believing he was being driven to Turkey -
and was arrested as a spy, perhaps because of his British passport. He
was held in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and fell into US hands.
Now Jamal bears
the scars of Guantanamo. He stoops into a hunch as he walks because the
shackles that bound him were too short.
As
a punishment, inmates would be confined so tightly they would be forced
to lie in a ball for hours. During lengthy interrogation, they would be
tethered to a metal ring on the floor.
Jamal
said: "Sometimes you would be chained up on the floor with your hands
and feet actually bound together. One of my friends told me he was kept
like that for 15 hours once.
"Recreation
meant your legs were untied and you walked up and down a strip of
gravel. In Camp X-Ray you only got five minutes but in Delta you walked
for around 15 minutes."
Jamal
said victims of the Extreme Reaction Force were paraded in front of
cells. "It was a horrible sight and it was a frequent sight."
He
said one unit used force-feeding to end a hunger strike by 70 per cent
of the 600 inmates. The strike started after a guard deliberately
kicked a copy of the Koran.
Rice
and beans was the usual diet and the water was "filthy". Jamal added:
"In Camp X-Ray it was yellow and in Delta it was black - the colour of
Coca-Cola.
"We had it piped
through with a tap in each 'cage' but they would often turn the water
off as punishment.
"They would shut
off the water before prayers so we couldn't wash ourselves according to
our religion.
"The food was
terrible as well, up to 10 years out-of-date. They would open a hatch
and shove it through a section at a time.
"We
had porridge and something they called 'like-milk', which was
disgusting and 'like-tea' and a piece of fruit. The fruit had been
frozen and pounded with chemicals. An apple might look red but there
was waxy white stuff all over it and inside it would be black and brown.
"They
would play tricks on people by denying them things - you might be the
only person on your block who didn't get any bread. I prided myself on
never asking them for anything. I would not beg." Jamal said they were
told they had no rights. "They actually said that - 'You have no rights
here'. After a while, we stopped asking for human rights - we wanted
animal rights. In Camp X-Ray my cage was right next to a kennel housing
an Alsatian dog.
"He had a
wooden house with air conditioning and green grass to exercise on. I
said to the guards, 'I want his rights' and they replied, 'That dog is
member of the US army'.
"You
would be punished for anything - for having six packets of salt in your
cell rather than five, for hanging your towel through the cage if it
wasn't wet, even for having your spoon and things lined up in the wrong
order."
Being forced to
use a bucket as a toilet in view of other inmates and guards was
particularly embarrassing. Jamal said: "I never got used to it - we
would all put our towels and clothes around us.
"But the Military
Police up in the tower would see us and would shout to each other.
"We were only
allowed a shower once a week at the beginning and none at all in
solitary confinement.
"This was very
tough because you are supposed to be clean when you pray.
"Gradually the
number of showers rose to three a week. They were always cold.
"You would be
chained by two MPs while you were still in the cage before being taken
off for what they called 'rec and shower'.
"You
could sometimes see the guards tampering with the shower heads to make
water squirt all over the inmate's clothes if he had put them up to
protect his privacy."
Inmates
were issued with "comfort items" - known as CIs - like shampoo, towels,
a washcloth and boxer shorts. CIs would be removed as a punishment.
Jamal defiantly
refused "treats", such as watching a James Bond film in a room dubbed
The Love Shack by inmates.
He
added: "Some people were given pizzas, ice-cream and McDonald's, but
they didn't offer them to me. I guess they knew bribery would work with
some and not with others."
To
pass the time, inmates would chat to each other, pray, read the Koran
and sing Islamic songs. In Camp X-Ray, they were given Mills and
Boon-style romance novels in Arabic, which they refused to read.
Describing
medical treatment, Jamal said he knew of 11 men who had legs amputated
and two who lost toes and fingers. He was told that the Americans had
removed far more tissue than was necessary.
HE
added: "The man in the cell next to me had frostbite in two fingers and
two toes. He also had it in his big toe, but they didn't treat that for
a year by which time they had to cut off much more than was needed.
"All the men who
had lost limbs complained they would chop them off high up and not
bother to try to save as much as possible."
Jamal
added that he didn't have close friends in Guantanamo, saying: "When I
did meet the other Brits, we would reminisce about home - particularly
the food.
"We were all
obsessed with Scottish Highland Shortbread - we wanted some so much.
"One of the Brits
told me he was asked why he was a Muslim, because he ought to be
praying to the Queen."
Jamal,
who is divorced with daughters aged three and eight and a son of five,
is convinced his refusal to succumb to mind-games gave him the will to
come through.
He said: "It was
very, very hard at times, but I tried to think about nothing but
survival.
"I kept my
thoughts from home as much as possible because it would drive me crazy.
"About a year into
my time, I had a dream. A voice said, 'You will here for two years'.
"In
my dream I said, 'Two years! You're joking'. But when I woke up, I was
calmer because at least that meant I would be getting out one day.
"I
was sent to Guantanamo on February 11, 2002 and left on March 9, 2004,
so I was there for just over two years, just like the voice in the
dream said."
CLICK
BELOW FOR MORE
TERROR
OF TORTURE IN CUBA CAMP
I
WAS IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME
VOICE OF THE
MIRROR: A TALE TO SHAME THE FREE WORLD
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