Guantanamo: 'Hunger strike on'
2005-07-21 17:24
Kabul - Two Afghans released from Guantanamo Bay have claimed that about 180 Afghans at the US detention facility were on a hunger strike to protest alleged mistreatment and to push for freedom.
Habir Russol and Moheb Ullah Borekzai, who said they left the prison camp on Monday and were flown to Afghanistan before being freed, said on Wednesday they did not participate in the hunger strike. They did not say how they knew others were refusing to eat.
A Pentagon spokesperson, Navy lieutenant Flex Plexico, said he was unaware of a hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, but would inquire.
Amnesty International in London said it knew nothing about hunger strikes at Guantanamo, other than media reports.
Mistreatment during interrogation
Russol said 180 Afghan prisoners "are not eating or drinking". He and Borekzai estimated the men were in the 14th or 15th day of their fast.
Borekzai later said the detainees were protesting because "some of these people say they were mistreated during interrogation. Some say they are innocent".
He said: "They are protesting that they have been in jail nearly four years and they want to be released."
Neil Koslowe, a Washington-based lawyer for 12 detainees from Kuwait, said several inmates told him during a June 20-24 visit to Guantanamo that there was a "widespread" hunger strike over the amount and quality of their drinking water.
Taliban regime
The two Afghans released this week said they had been accused of being members of the former Taliban regime, but both said they were innocent.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that seven Guantanamo detainees had been released and an eighth transferred to custody.
The Pentagon said, in addition to the two released Afghans, three Saudi Arabians, a Jordanian and a Sudanese were freed.
The official Saudi Press Agency in Riyadh said the three Saudis who were not identified, were handed over to Saudi security.
It did not specify whether the three were detained for questioning, saying only that "the regular procedures will be applied accordingly".
Links to al-Qaeda cell
US officials said, in addition, a Moroccan was transferred to control of the government of Spain. The Pentagon did not identify the detainees.
The Moroccan was identified earlier this week in Spain as Lahcen Ikassrien, who had been charged there for his links to an al-Qaeda cell.
The defence department had sought to dispute allegations of mistreatment of detainees at Guantanamo, where about 520 prisoners remained, mostly Afghans, Pakistanis and others captured after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Military investigators said that this month they proposed disciplining the prison commander because of abusive and degrading treatment of a suspected terrorist, but that the matter had been referred to the army's inspector general instead.
- AP