We hear today, more than six years after the camp was set up, that the first charges are to be brought against detainees at Guantánamo Bay. The US admits to the "waterboarding" (partial drowning) of some of those charged. What follows is a rather more explicit account by a Guantánamo inmate (and former British resident) of the treatment regime associated with the US detention programme. It is taken from a Reprieve report into Portuguese complicity with "extraordinary rendition" flights across European airspace. Reprieve is the organization which has done most to offer legal support to Guantánamo inmates.
Binyam Mohamed was born in Ethiopia, where his family faced persecution. At 14 he came to London to seek asylum. He lived in North Kensington for five years. In the summer of 2001, Binyam left the UK to travel. In April 2002, on his way home, he was arrested by the Pakistan immigration authorities. In July 2002, he was handed to the Americans who bundled him into a jet and flew him to Morocco where he endured 18 months of torture in a black site where his mistreatment included having his penis repeatedly slashed with a razor blade.
"What kind of torture do they do in this place?" I asked one of the guards.
"They'll come in wearing masks and beat you up. They'll beat you with sticks. They'll rape you first, then they'll take a glass bottle, they break the top off and make you sit on it".
After months of torture in Morocco, Binyam was flown, in January 2002, to the Dark Prison in Afghanistan, where he endured a further five months of torture.
'It was pitch black no lights on in the rooms for most of the time ... They hung me up. I was allowed a few hours of sleep on the second day, then hung up again, this time for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb ... The CIA worked on people, including me, day and night ... Plenty lost their minds. I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and doors, screaming their heads off."
Bagram airbase was Binyam's next destination, where he was forced to make a confession based on statements extracted from him under torture in Morocco and Afghanistan. From there he was transported with nine other prisoners either on RCH948Y or RCH947 to Guantánamo. After a flight of over twenty hours, the prisoners landed in the heat of Cuba and were put in isolation from other prisoners for six days in Camp 5, in Delta Block.
"The air conditioning was put very cold. We would sleep on the bare floor, with its coldness as our bed and the chilly air as our blanket. We went on hunger strike for five days, we fell ill ..."
Binyam has been imprisoned in Guantánamo since September 2004. Reprieve still works for his safe return.
In August last year the British foreign secretary wrote to the US authorities requesting the release and return to the UK of Binyam Mohamed and four other former British residents. On January 18th this year, foreign office minister Kim Howells wrote to Enfield Southgate MP David Burrowes: "With regards to Mr Mohammed (sic), we are still discussing his case with the US Government, although again the US Government is not presently inclined to agree to his release and return due to significant security concerns".
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