FBI: WE SAW SHOCK GUANTANAMO ABUSE

Agents tell of torture at terror camp
By Ryan Parry

FBI agents have blown the whistle on sickening abuse of prisoners at the notorious Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba. A dossier compiled by agency bosses on guards' conduct has been released in full for the first time.

It tells how prisoners suspected of being al-Qaeda sympathisers and held without charge were subjected to horrifying physical and psychological torture.

Some guards allegedly dressed as priests to "baptise" Muslim prisoners. (they probably were priests)

A detainee was subjected to a degrading lap dance by a topless female guard and others had their prayers interrupted by guards splashing fluid on their faces and telling them it was menstrual blood. An inmate was badly beaten after revealing he had recently had abdominal surgery.


And several were placed in unheated, darkened cells and interrogated for 24 hours non-stop. One FBI witness reported being told that then US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld had approved this technique. The FBI report says the agency surveyed all 493 of their personnel assigned to the camp and determined no FBI agent or support staff was involved.


The abuse was carried out by other government agencies or outside contractors, it says. The report states: "On several occasions, witnesses saw detainees in interrogation rooms chained hand and foot in foetal position to floor with no chair/food/water.


"Most urinated or defecated on selves and were left there 18, 24 hours or more." One of the FBI staff at the camp also saw a detainee "with a full beard whose head was wrapped in duct tape".


In another incident, an interrogator allegedly squatted over the Koran and a German shepherd dog was ordered to "growl, bark and show his teeth to the prisoner". Another detainee was draped in an Israeli flag. The US military prison at Guantanamo was set up to hold suspected al-Qaeda terrorists or sympathisers in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks.


The FBI office of general counsel ordered the "special inquiry" in September 2004 but the results were not made public. They have only now released the documents in response to a freedom of information request by the American Civil Liberties Union. They stressed the report had also been vetted by the department of defence.