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Guantanamo Brit 'tortured'
01/10/2004 20:50 - (SA)
London - A British detainee at Guantanamo Bay claims to have been tortured by the United States, Sky news reports.
Moazzam Begg says he also witnessed the deaths of two fellow detainees "at the hands of US military personnel".
The claims are made in a hand-written letter newly declassified by the US.
The letter is the first time any communication from a serving Guantanamo detainee has been made public.
Begg, from Birmingham, has been detained for more than two years at the prison camp in Cuba without charge.
In the letter, he insists he is a law-abiding British citizen, has never met Osama bin Laden and is not a member of al-Qaeda or any other paramilitary organisation.
"During several interviews, particularly - though not exclusively - in Afghanistan, I was subjected to pernicious threats of torture, actual vindictive torture and death threats - amongst other coercively employed interrogation techniques," he says.
"I state here, unequivocally and for the record, that any documents presented to me by US law enforcement agents were signed and initialled under duress, thus rendered legally contested in validity."
He added: "The said interviews were conducted in an environment of generated fear, resonant with terrifying screams of fellow detainees facing similar methods.
"In this atmosphere of severe antipathy towards detainees was the compounded use of racially and religiously prejudiced taunts.
"This culminated, in my opinion, with the deaths of two fellow detainees at the hands of US military personnel, to which I myself was partially witness."
In the four-page letter, Begg also demanded to know the reason for his alleged abduction, why he was taken into a designated war zone and why he was physically abused.
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