Makes a fellow proud to be an American

[Dan Scanlan <dscanlan@xxxxxxx>]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=14042696&method=full&;
siteid=50143


 Mar 12 2004

WORLD EXCLUSIVE Mirror.co.uk


MY HELL IN CAMP X-RAY By Rosa Prince and Gary Jones


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.

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A diet of foul water and food up to 10 years out-of-date left inmates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."