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Pentagon to Probe Gitmo Beatings Claim    [

    Guards Describe Guantanamo Prisoner Abuse
    Reuters

    Saturday 07 October 2006

    Washington - Guantanamo guards described physically and mentally abusing detainees, including slamming one's head into a cell door and denying them privileges merely to anger them, a U.S. Marine said in a document made public on Friday.

    "Examples of this abuse included hitting detainees, denying them water, and removal of privileges for no reason," the Marine Corps sergeant stated in a sworn affidavit sent to the Pentagon's inspector general's office for investigation.

    The affidavit, signed on Wednesday, was provided by lawyers representing some of the approximately 455 foreign terrorism suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It represents the latest in a series of allegations of abuse of Guantanamo detainees by U.S. personnel.

    The name of the sergeant, a female paralegal in a detainee criminal case, was blacked out. The sergeant described an hourlong conversation with guards at a bar at the base on September 23, but the affidavit mentioned only the first names of those accused of taking part in the abuse.

    U.S. Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, a spokesman for the military task force running the Guantanamo facility, said: "The mission of the Joint Task Force is the safe and humane care and custody of detained enemy combatants. Abuse or harassment of detainees in any form is not condoned or tolerated."

    "The Joint Task Force will cooperate fully with the inspector general to learn the facts of the matter and will take action where misconduct is discovered," Durand added by e-mail.

    A Navy sailor named Bo told of beating detainees. "One such story Bo told involved him taking a detainee by the head and hitting the detainee's head into the cell door," the sergeant wrote, adding that Bo stated that others at Guantanamo knew of his actions and did not punish him.

    A guard named Steven said that even when the conduct of detainees was good, guards would take away personal items. "He said they do this to anger the detainees so they can punish them when they object or complain," she stated.

    "A Common Practice"

    The affidavit said about five other guards talking at the bar admitted to hitting detainees, including punching them in the face. "From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice. Everyone in the group laughed at the others' stories of beating detainees," she wrote.

    Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, a Marine lawyer assigned to defend a Canadian detainee, Omar Ahmed Khadr, charged with murder, said in a memo to the inspector general's office that the abuse described violated U.S. and international law.

    The United States has faced international criticism over its indefinite detention of Guantanamo detainees, many held more than four years without charges. The Pentagon contends the facility is vital to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects who might otherwise return to the battlefield.

    Wells Dixon, a lawyer representing four current Guantanamo detainees, said the latest account of abuse reflected a complete breakdown in the chain of command at Guantanamo and a lack of accountability by senior military officials there.

    "The fact that members of the U.S. Navy can sit around at a bar and laugh about beating detainees for no reason is outrageous. We're one step away from Abu Ghraib (Iraq prison abuse scandal) or possibly worse," Dixon said.

 

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    Pentagon to Probe Gitmo Beatings Claim
    By Thomas Watkins
    The Associated Press

    Friday 06 October 2006

    Camp Pendleton, California - The Pentagon said Friday that it will investigate a Marine's sworn statement that guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as a common practice.

    The Marine, a paralegal who was at the U.S. Navy station in Cuba last month, alleges that several guards she talked to at the base club said they routinely hit detainees.

    "From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice," the sergeant wrote. "Everyone in the group laughed at the others' stories of beating detainees."

    The woman's name was blacked out of a copy of a two-page affidavit provided to The Associated Press by a civilian defense attorney working with Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, the Marine Corps' defense coordinator for the Western United States and based at Camp Pendleton.

    Vokey, who sent the statement Wednesday to the Inspector General at the Department of Defense, called for an investigation, saying the abuse alleged in the affidavit "is offensive and violates United States and international law."

    Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler said defense officials "are reviewing this affidavit and will investigate these allegations fully." A call to the inspector general's office was not immediately returned

    Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, spokesman for the Joint Task Force that oversees detention facilities at Guantanamo, said the force "will participate fully with the inspector general to learn the facts of the matter and will take action where misconduct is discovered."

    "Abuse or harassment of detainees in any form is not condoned or tolerated," Durand said.

    Guantanamo Bay houses about 450 suspected members of al-Qaida and the Taliban. Human-rights groups have roundly criticized the Bush administration for detaining most without criminal charges, but U.S. officials have defended the detentions as necessary in the war on terrorism and say the detainees are treated humanely.

    The Marine said in the sworn statement that she has been working at Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton in Southern California on a Guantanamo-related case, and was in Guantanamo from Sept. 20-27.

    She said some Marines had invited her to the base club Sept. 23. She didn't see them but a group of at least 15 sailors invited her to join them. She said she spoke with the sailors for about an hour, during which she had one drink, and that the sailors did not appear drunk.

    A 19-year-old sailor referred to only as Bo "told the other guards and me about him beating different detainees being held in the prison," the statement said.

    "One such story Bo told involved him taking a detainee by the head and hitting the detainee's head into the cell door. Bo said that his actions were known by others," the statement said. The sailor said he was never punished.

    Other guards "also told their own stories of abuse towards the detainees" that included hitting them, denying them water and "removing privileges for no reason."

    "About 5 others in the group admitted hitting detainees" and that included "punching in the face," the affidavit said.

    Guantanamo was internationally condemned shortly after it opened more than four years ago when pictures captured prisoners kneeling, shackled and being herded into wire cages. That was followed by reports of prisoner abuse, heavy-handed interrogations, hunger strikes and suicides.

    Military investigators said in July 2005 they confirmed abusive and degrading treatment of a suspected terrorist at Guantanamo Bay that included forcing him to wear a bra, dance with another man and behave like a dog.

    However, the chief investigator, Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, said "no torture occurred" during the interrogation of Mohamed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who was captured in December 2001 along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

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    Associated Press Writer Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.