S. O. Damocles wrote:
British Guantanamo Detainee Alleges Torture, Murder by US
Military at Afghan Base
Oct 1, 2004 Pentagon
A British man detained by the U.S. military as an enemy
combatant in the war on terror says he was tortured while
held in Afghanistan and claims he saw fellow detainees
killed by American soldiers there. The U.S. military is
promising an investigation into this latest claim of
prisoner abuse.
Moazzam Begg has been detained as an enemy combatant since
his capture in Pakistan almost three years ago. He has
never been charged with a crime, but is among hundreds of
foreign detainees being held indefinitely at the U.S. naval
base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in the war on terror.
In a handwritten letter received by his lawyers, the
36-year-old Briton claims to have been tortured by the U.S.
military and threatened with death in order to get him to
confess to things he says he has not done. And he writes he
witnessed the deaths of two fellow detainees at the hands
of his American captors and has since been kept in solitary
confinement.
Gareth Peirce is his lawyer.
"I would say he is being held separately because he has
witnessed murder and therefore he is in a unique position.
He has evidence of unlawful killing by the U.S. military
and that evidence is clearly being suppressed."
Another one of his lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith, says he
is at a loss to explain how a letter detailing such
allegations could have gotten past U.S. military
authorities uncensored.
"The letter that has come through their classification
process has either been let through by mistake or it has
been let through because someone in the United States has a
conscience."
The British government is asking the United States to look
into the allegations, which U.S. military officials, all
the way up to Navy Secretary Gordon England, say will be
done. Lieutenant Commander Nick Balice is a spokesman for
the military's Central Command, which has responsibility
for operations in Afghanistan.
"If there is valid evidence or claims stating that there is
potential abuse or in this case death that has occurred,
when that information is brought to the chain of command,
those cases are investigated."
Moazzam Begg is one of four Britons being detained at a
U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. The British government
has asked the United States to free all of them. The first
full military trial for an enemy combatant charged with war
crimes is set to get under way at Guantanamo in December.
