Time reports on abuses at Guantanamo

One Life Inside Gitmo

The U.S. government says Detainee 063 has provided invaluable intelligence. His lawyer says that the statements were coerced and that the interrogation log--published exclusively on TIME.com--proves it.

By ADAM ZAGORIN

The prisoner didn't trust his lawyer at the start, refusing even to speak with her. She did what she could to win his confidence, donning a hijab, the head covering worn by observant Muslim women, when she visited him at Camp Delta at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Eventually, he began to ask how his aging father in Saudi Arabia made contact with her, how he could be sure she was not another interrogator trying to extract more information from him. "He asked me the same questions over and over," says Gitanjali Gutierrez. "He desperately sought some means of reassuring himself that I was a real lawyer and would not betray him."

(The entire report is here.)

This is one more in a long series of reports on prisoner abuses at Guantanamo, some of them originating with FBI agents assigned to Camp X-Ray who objected to Army practices.

Published on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times

FBI Agents Complained of Prisoner Abuse, Records Say
Documents obtained by ACLU show continued reports of mistreatment in Iraq and Cuba

by Richard Serrano

WASHINGTON — FBI agents have lodged repeated complaints of physical and mental mistreatment of prisoners held in Iraq and Cuba, saying in reports that military officials have placed lighted cigarettes in detainees' ears and humiliated Arab captives by wrapping Israeli flags around them, according to new documents released Monday.

The FBI records, which are among the latest set of documents obtained by the ACLU in its lawsuit against the federal government, also include instances in which bureau officials said they were disgusted by military interrogators who pretended to be FBI agents as a "ruse" to glean intelligence from prisoners.

The FBI complained that military interrogators had gone beyond the restrictions of the Geneva Convention that prohibit torture; the agents cited Bush administration guidelines that permit the use of dogs and other techniques to harass prisoners.

The records disclosed Monday are the second set in which FBI officials objected to military detention practices, and are notable because some instances occurred after revelations this year of prisoner abuses at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Earlier this month, the ACLU released records in which FBI agents complained about prisoner abuse in 2002. The new records show FBI complaints have continued through 2004. In each case, the names of the agents were removed before the records were released.

(The full report is contained here.)

Here's another, from the Washington Post:

Further Detainee Abuse Alleged
Guantanamo Prison Cited in FBI Memos

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 26, 2004; Page A01

At least 10 current and former detainees at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have lodged allegations of abuse similar to the incidents described by FBI agents in newly released documents, claims that were denied by the government but gained credibility with the reports from the agents, their attorneys say.

In public statements after their release and in documents filed with federal courts, the detainees have said they were beaten before and during interrogations, "short-shackled" to the floor and otherwise mistreated as part of the effort to get them to confess to being members of al Qaeda or the Taliban.

(The entire story is here.)