Guantanamo inmate wrongly held
2004-12-21 10:41
Washington - A military review has determined a second prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is classified wrongly as an enemy combatant and will be released to his home country soon, the Navy's top civilian said.
Pentagon officials also said on Monday they were looking into newly public allegations that interrogators at the US military prison at Guantanamo questioned detainees under the guise of being FBI agents.
The American Civil Liberties Union obtained and released e-mails that showed FBI officials disapproved of the practice and suggested the military interrogators were trying to take advantage of the rapport the FBI had established with some detainees.
Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman said such a technique was not on a list of interrogation methods approved by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. It was difficult to determine from the e-mails, however, whether it "was permissible or not." Defence officials said it is permissible to impersonate a foreign national during interrogations.
President George W Bush said, "You've got to understand the dilemma we're in. These are people that got scooped up off a battlefield attempting to kill US troops."
The newest prisoner to face release would be the second to be freed under a military process instituted to help satisfy the Supreme Court's ruling during the summer that prisoners at Guantanamo could challenge their detentions through the US court system.
The ACLU's latest releases about the prisoners' treatment were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and primarily constitute e-mails between FBI officials whose names were removed by the government before they were released. In several, the writers describe and criticize various interrogation techniques they say they witnessed at Guantanamo.
While military interrogators are performing much of the questioning at Guantanamo, the FBI and CIA also have operations there.
In one, the writer describes seeing a "detainee sitting on the floor of the interview room with an Israeli flag draped around him, loud music being played and a strobe light flashing." Another Guantanamo prisoner has, in a court petition, described detainees wrapped in Israeli flags, among other allegations. At the time, a Guantanamo Bay spokesperson denied his statements.
In another message, dated from August, the writer reports more than once witnessing prisoners chained to the floor in a foetal position, with no food or water. They had often soiled themselves. On one occasion, the temperature in a room was lowered so much the barefooted detainee shivered. In another, the room was so hot the detainee had pulled out some of his hair before passing out.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, said the latest release of FBI documents continues to show the US government was "torturing individuals in some instances" and demonstrates a major rift between FBI agents and the military over proper interrogation techniques.
- AP