Terror suspect claims sex abuse

2005-10-31 18:49

Sydney - US soldiers sexually abused an Australian terror suspect now being held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba, the man's father alleged in an interview screened on Monday.

Terry Hicks said his son David had told him he was tortured during two 10-hour sessions shortly after being captured alongside Taliban forces in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Hicks said he initially questioned his son over the nationality of his torturers, but he insisted they were Americans because of their accents.

"He said he had a bag over his head and he said: 'Oh look, I know their accents, they're definitely American' - some pretty horrific things were done to him," Hicks told ABC television.

Injections

He said his son told him he was given injections by the Americans and anally penetrated with a number of objects.

Former British Guantanamo Bay detainee Martin Munbanga said Hicks told him he was flown blindfolded from a US warship in the Gulf to an unknown destination that he believed to be Afghanistan or Pakistan where the torture sessions occurred.

Hicks, 30, a convert to Islam, is due to stand trial on November 18 before a US military commission on terrorism-related charges, including attempted murder, aiding the enemy and training at al-Qaeda-linked military camps.

He has denied the charges.

Foreign minister Alexander Downer said he was surprised at the allegations, because Hicks had never raised sexual assault matters when the Australia's consul in the US had visited him in Guantanamo Bay over the past four years.

Rape

"If he had been raped in this period of time, surely people would come to the Australian government and tell us about this," he told reporters.

"Anybody being raped, regardless of circumstances is completely unacceptable.

"It's an utter outrage, but the claim is appearing in a television programme and I've not heard of it before."

Downer said Australian officials in the United States would look into the claims, which follow allegations last week by a former US army chaplain at Guantanamo Bay that Hicks was offered prostitutes in exchange for information.

- AFP