[Marxism] Sen. Leahy urges action as Briton says Guant. abuse filmed

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Observer (London) Sunday May 16, 2004
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1217973,00.htm
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US guards 'filmed beatings' at terror camp

Senator urges action as Briton reveals Guantanamo abuse
by David Rose and Gaby Hinsliff

Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged
in brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been
stored and catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The
Observer has revealed.

The disclosures, made in an interview with Tarek Dergoul,
the fifth British prisoner freed last March, who has been
too traumatised to speak until now, prompted demands last
night by senior politicians on both sides of the Atlantic
to make the videos available immediately.

They say that if the contents are as shocking as Dergoul
claims, they will provide final proof that brutality
against detainees has become an institutionalised feature
of America's war on terror.

In the wake of the furore over the abuses photographed at
Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq, US Defence Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld has continued to insist they were the work of a
few rogue soldiers, and not a systemic problem.

The disclosures come as the top American commander in Iraq,
Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, announced he has barred
all coercive interrogation practices, including forcing
prisoners into stress positions for long periods and
disrupting their sleep, except in very rare circumstances.

British military police made four arrests over allegations
that British troops abused Iraqi prisoners. All four men
were later released without charge, pending fur ther
interviews. It is the case of Dergoul, however, that is
likely to be the most damaging. The 26-year-old, from Mile
End in east London, spent 22 months at Guantanamo Bay from
May 2002. Today he tells The Observer of repeated assaults
by Camp Delta's punishment squad, known as the Extreme
Reaction Force or ERF.

Their attacks, he says, would be prompted by minor
disciplinary infractions, such as refusing to agree to the
third cell search in a day - which he describes as an act
of deliberate provocation.

Dergoul tells of one assault by a five-man ERF in shocking
terms: 'They pepper-sprayed me in the face, and I started
vomiting. They pinned me down and attacked me, poking their
fingers in my eyes, and forced my head into the toilet pan
and flushed.

'They tied me up like a beast and then they were kneeling
on me, kicking and punching. Finally they dragged me out of
the cell in chains, into the rec[reation] yard, and shaved
my beard, my hair, my eyebrows.'

After their release last March, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal
and Ruhal Ahmed, the so-called Tipton Three from
Staffordshire, told of similar ERF attacks.

Rasul said they led to a new verb being coined by
detainees: 'to be ERFed'. That, he said, meant being
slammed against a floor by a soldier wielding a riot
shield, pinned to the ground and beaten up by five armed
men.

However, it is Dergoul who now reveals that every time the
ERFs were deployed, a sixth team member recorded on digital
video everything that happened.

Lieutenant Colonel Leon Sumpter, the Guantanamo Joint Task
Force spokesman, confirmed this last night, saying all ERF
actions were filmed so they could be 'reviewed' by senior
officers. All the tapes are kept in an archive there, he
said. He refused to say how many times the ERF squads had
been used and would not discuss their training or rules of
engagement, saying: 'We do not discuss operational aspects
of the Joint Task Force mission.'

The Observer can also now disclose that a British military
interrogator posted to the now notorious Abu Ghraib abuse
jail raised the alarm about maltreatment of detainees by US
troops as long ago as last March.

While ministers insisted last week that the three Britons
working in the jail did not see any of the systematic and
sadistic abuse, an unnamed lieutenant - a debriefer trained
to deal only with co-operative witnesses - made an official
complaint to US authorities after seeing what he considered
to be 'rough handling' of prisoners.

But it is the revelations about Guantanamo Bay that are the
most damaging for a White House desperately trying to draw
a line under the Iraq abuse allegations.

Senator Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate
Judiciary Committee, who has been an outspoken critic of
the Abu Ghraib abuse, said he would demand that Rumsfeld
must produce the videos this week.

'Congressional oversight of this administration has been
lax in many areas, including detention policy in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Guantanamo,' Leahy said. 'It is past time
for that to change. If photos, videotapes or any other
evidence exists that can help establish whether or not
there has been mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay,
it should be provided without delay to Congress.

'I have asked the Pentagon for sufficient information to
allow Congress to evaluate the effectiveness and propriety
of the treatment of those in our custody. Pentagon
officials owe the Congress a comprehensive response. I have
made clear that compliance must include any tapes or photos
of the activities of the ERF or any other military or
intelligence units there.'

In London, Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat deputy
leader, said: 'The Government must demand that these videos
be delivered up, and the truth of these very serious
allegations properly determined once and for all.

'The videos provide an unequalled opportunity to check the
veracity of what Mr Dergoul and the other former detainees
are saying.



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