MY HELL IN CAMP X-RAY
Mar 12 2004
WORLD EXCLUSIVE
By Rosa Prince and Gary Jones
A BRITISH captive freed from Guantanamo Bay today tells the world of its
full horror - and reveals how prostitutes were taken into the camp to
degrade Muslim inmates.
Jamal al-Harith, 37, who arrived home three days ago after two years of
confinement, is the first detainee to lift the lid on the US regime in
Cuba's Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta.
The father-of-three, from Manchester, told how he was assaulted with fists,
feet and batons after refusing a mystery injection.
FREEDOM: Jamal yesterday... but he will never forget camp horror
He said detainees were shackled for up to 15 hours at a time in hand and leg
cuffs with metal links which cut into the skin.
Their "cells" were wire cages with concrete floors and open to the elements
- giving no privacy or protection from the rats, snakes and scorpions loose
around the American base.
He claims punishment beatings were handed out by guards known as the Extreme
Reaction Force. They waded into inmates in full riot-gear, raining blows on
them.
Prisoners faced psychological torture and mind-games in attempts to make
them confess to acts they had never committed. Even petty breaches of rules
brought severe punishment.
Medical treatment was sparse and brutal and amputations of limbs were more
drastic than required, claimed Jamal.
A diet of foul water and food up to 10 years out-of-date left inmates
malnourished.
But Jamal's most shocking disclosure centred on the use of vice girls to
torment the most religiously devout detainees.
Prisoners who had never seen an "unveiled" woman before would be forced to
watch as the hookers touched their own naked bodies.
The men would return distraught. One said an American girl had smeared
menstrual blood across his face in an act of humiliation.
Jamal said: "I knew of this happening about 10 times. It always seemed to be
those who were very young or known to be particularly religious who would be
taken away.
"I would joke with the other British lads, 'Bring them to us - we'll have
them'. It made us laugh. But the Americans obviously knew we wouldn't be
shocked by seeing Western women, so they didn't bother.
"It was a profoundly disturbing experience for these men. They would refuse
to speak about what had happened. It would take perhaps four weeks for them
to tell a friend - and we would shout it out around the whole block."
Jamal added: "The whole point of Guantanamo was to get to you
psychologically. The beatings were not as nearly as bad as the psychological
torture - bruises heal after a week - but the other stuff stays with you."
HE was talking from a secret location after being reunited with his family.
The website designer, a convert to Islam, had gone to Pakistan in October
2001, a few weeks after September 11, to study Muslim culture.
He accidentally strayed into Afghanistan - believing he was being driven to
Turkey - and was arrested as a spy, perhaps because of his British passport.
He was held in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and fell into US hands.
Now Jamal bears the scars of Guantanamo. He stoops into a hunch as he walks
because the shackles that bound him were too short.
As a punishment, inmates would be confined so tightly they would be forced
to lie in a ball for hours. During lengthy interrogation, they would be
tethered to a metal ring on the floor.
Jamal said: "Sometimes you would be chained up on the floor with your hands
and feet actually bound together. One of my friends told me he was kept like
that for 15 hours once.
"Recreation meant your legs were untied and you walked up and down a strip
of gravel. In Camp X-Ray you only got five minutes but in Delta you walked
for around 15 minutes."
Jamal said victims of the Extreme Reaction Force were paraded in front of
cells. "It was a horrible sight and it was a frequent sight."
He said one unit used force-feeding to end a hunger strike by 70 per cent of
the 600 inmates. The strike started after a guard deliberately kicked a copy
of the Koran.
Rice and beans was the usual diet and the water was "filthy". Jamal added:
"In Camp X-Ray it was yellow and in Delta it was black - the colour of
Coca-Cola.
"We had it piped through with a tap in each 'cage' but they would often turn
the water off as punishment.
"They would shut off the water before prayers so we couldn't wash ourselves
according to our religion.
"The food was terrible as well, up to 10 years out-of-date. They would open
a hatch and shove it through a section at a time.
"We had porridge and something they called 'like-milk', which was disgusting
and 'like-tea' and a piece of fruit. The fruit had been frozen and pounded
with chemicals. An apple might look red but there was waxy white stuff all
over it and inside it would be black and brown.
"They would play tricks on people by denying them things - you might be the
only person on your block who didn't get any bread. I prided myself on never
asking them for anything. I would not beg." Jamal said they were told they
had no rights. "They actually said that - 'You have no rights here'. After a
while, we stopped asking for human rights - we wanted animal rights. In Camp
X-Ray my cage was right next to a kennel housing an Alsatian dog.
"He had a wooden house with air conditioning and green grass to exercise on.
I said to the guards, 'I want his rights' and they replied, 'That dog is
member of the US army'.
"You would be punished for anything - for having six packets of salt in your
cell rather than five, for hanging your towel through the cage if it wasn't
wet, even for having your spoon and things lined up in the wrong order."
Being forced to use a bucket as a toilet in view of other inmates and guards
was particularly embarrassing. Jamal said: "I never got used to it - we
would all put our towels and clothes around us.
"But the Military Police up in the tower would see us and would shout to
each other.
"We were only allowed a shower once a week at the beginning and none at all
in solitary confinement.
"This was very tough because you are supposed to be clean when you pray.
"Gradually the number of showers rose to three a week. They were always
cold.
"You would be chained by two MPs while you were still in the cage before
being taken off for what they called 'rec and shower'.
"You could sometimes see the guards tampering with the shower heads to make
water squirt all over the inmate's clothes if he had put them up to protect
his privacy."
Inmates were issued with "comfort items" - known as CIs - like shampoo,
towels, a washcloth and boxer shorts. CIs would be removed as a punishment.
Jamal defiantly refused "treats", such as watching a James Bond film in a
room dubbed The Love Shack by inmates.
He added: "Some people were given pizzas, ice-cream and McDonald's, but they
didn't offer them to me. I guess they knew bribery would work with some and
not with others."
To pass the time, inmates would chat to each other, pray, read the Koran and
sing Islamic songs. In Camp X-Ray, they were given Mills and Boon-style
romance novels in Arabic, which they refused to read.
Describing medical treatment, Jamal said he knew of 11 men who had legs
amputated and two who lost toes and fingers. He was told that the Americans
had removed far more tissue than was necessary.
HE added: "The man in the cell next to me had frostbite in two fingers and
two toes. He also had it in his big toe, but they didn't treat that for a
year by which time they had to cut off much more than was needed.
"All the men who had lost limbs complained they would chop them off high up
and not bother to try to save as much as possible."
Jamal added that he didn't have close friends in Guantanamo, saying: "When I
did meet the other Brits, we would reminisce about home - particularly the
food.
"We were all obsessed with Scottish Highland Shortbread - we wanted some so
much.
"One of the Brits told me he was asked why he was a Muslim, because he ought
to be praying to the Queen."
Jamal, who is divorced with daughters aged three and eight and a son of
five, is convinced his refusal to succumb to mind-games gave him the will to
come through.
He said: "It was very, very hard at times, but I tried to think about
nothing but survival.
"I kept my thoughts from home as much as possible because it would drive me
crazy.
"About a year into my time, I had a dream. A voice said, 'You will here for
two years'.
"In my dream I said, 'Two years! You're joking'. But when I woke up, I was
calmer because at least that meant I would be getting out one day.
"I was sent to Guantanamo on February 11, 2002 and left on March 9, 2004, so
I was there for just over two years, just like the voice in the dream said."
Mar 12 2004
WORLD EXCLUSIVE
By Rosa Prince and Gary Jones
A BRITISH captive freed from Guantanamo Bay today tells the world of its
full horror - and reveals how prostitutes were taken into the camp to
degrade Muslim inmates.
Jamal al-Harith, 37, who arrived home three days ago after two years of
confinement, is the first detainee to lift the lid on the US regime in
Cuba's Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta.
The father-of-three, from Manchester, told how he was assaulted with fists,
feet and batons after refusing a mystery injection.
FREEDOM: Jamal yesterday... but he will never forget camp horror
He said detainees were shackled for up to 15 hours at a time in hand and leg
cuffs with metal links which cut into the skin.
Their "cells" were wire cages with concrete floors and open to the elements
- giving no privacy or protection from the rats, snakes and scorpions loose
around the American base.
He claims punishment beatings were handed out by guards known as the Extreme
Reaction Force. They waded into inmates in full riot-gear, raining blows on
them.
Prisoners faced psychological torture and mind-games in attempts to make
them confess to acts they had never committed. Even petty breaches of rules
brought severe punishment.
Medical treatment was sparse and brutal and amputations of limbs were more
drastic than required, claimed Jamal.
A diet of foul water and food up to 10 years out-of-date left inmates
malnourished.
But Jamal's most shocking disclosure centred on the use of vice girls to
torment the most religiously devout detainees.
Prisoners who had never seen an "unveiled" woman before would be forced to
watch as the hookers touched their own naked bodies.
The men would return distraught. One said an American girl had smeared
menstrual blood across his face in an act of humiliation.
Jamal said: "I knew of this happening about 10 times. It always seemed to be
those who were very young or known to be particularly religious who would be
taken away.
"I would joke with the other British lads, 'Bring them to us - we'll have
them'. It made us laugh. But the Americans obviously knew we wouldn't be
shocked by seeing Western women, so they didn't bother.
"It was a profoundly disturbing experience for these men. They would refuse
to speak about what had happened. It would take perhaps four weeks for them
to tell a friend - and we would shout it out around the whole block."
Jamal added: "The whole point of Guantanamo was to get to you
psychologically. The beatings were not as nearly as bad as the psychological
torture - bruises heal after a week - but the other stuff stays with you."
HE was talking from a secret location after being reunited with his family.
The website designer, a convert to Islam, had gone to Pakistan in October
2001, a few weeks after September 11, to study Muslim culture.
He accidentally strayed into Afghanistan - believing he was being driven to
Turkey - and was arrested as a spy, perhaps because of his British passport.
He was held in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and fell into US hands.
Now Jamal bears the scars of Guantanamo. He stoops into a hunch as he walks
because the shackles that bound him were too short.
As a punishment, inmates would be confined so tightly they would be forced
to lie in a ball for hours. During lengthy interrogation, they would be
tethered to a metal ring on the floor.
Jamal said: "Sometimes you would be chained up on the floor with your hands
and feet actually bound together. One of my friends told me he was kept like
that for 15 hours once.
"Recreation meant your legs were untied and you walked up and down a strip
of gravel. In Camp X-Ray you only got five minutes but in Delta you walked
for around 15 minutes."
Jamal said victims of the Extreme Reaction Force were paraded in front of
cells. "It was a horrible sight and it was a frequent sight."
He said one unit used force-feeding to end a hunger strike by 70 per cent of
the 600 inmates. The strike started after a guard deliberately kicked a copy
of the Koran.
Rice and beans was the usual diet and the water was "filthy". Jamal added:
"In Camp X-Ray it was yellow and in Delta it was black - the colour of
Coca-Cola.
"We had it piped through with a tap in each 'cage' but they would often turn
the water off as punishment.
"They would shut off the water before prayers so we couldn't wash ourselves
according to our religion.
"The food was terrible as well, up to 10 years out-of-date. They would open
a hatch and shove it through a section at a time.
"We had porridge and something they called 'like-milk', which was disgusting
and 'like-tea' and a piece of fruit. The fruit had been frozen and pounded
with chemicals. An apple might look red but there was waxy white stuff all
over it and inside it would be black and brown.
"They would play tricks on people by denying them things - you might be the
only person on your block who didn't get any bread. I prided myself on never
asking them for anything. I would not beg." Jamal said they were told they
had no rights. "They actually said that - 'You have no rights here'. After a
while, we stopped asking for human rights - we wanted animal rights. In Camp
X-Ray my cage was right next to a kennel housing an Alsatian dog.
"He had a wooden house with air conditioning and green grass to exercise on.
I said to the guards, 'I want his rights' and they replied, 'That dog is
member of the US army'.
"You would be punished for anything - for having six packets of salt in your
cell rather than five, for hanging your towel through the cage if it wasn't
wet, even for having your spoon and things lined up in the wrong order."
Being forced to use a bucket as a toilet in view of other inmates and guards
was particularly embarrassing. Jamal said: "I never got used to it - we
would all put our towels and clothes around us.
"But the Military Police up in the tower would see us and would shout to
each other.
"We were only allowed a shower once a week at the beginning and none at all
in solitary confinement.
"This was very tough because you are supposed to be clean when you pray.
"Gradually the number of showers rose to three a week. They were always
cold.
"You would be chained by two MPs while you were still in the cage before
being taken off for what they called 'rec and shower'.
"You could sometimes see the guards tampering with the shower heads to make
water squirt all over the inmate's clothes if he had put them up to protect
his privacy."
Inmates were issued with "comfort items" - known as CIs - like shampoo,
towels, a washcloth and boxer shorts. CIs would be removed as a punishment.
Jamal defiantly refused "treats", such as watching a James Bond film in a
room dubbed The Love Shack by inmates.
He added: "Some people were given pizzas, ice-cream and McDonald's, but they
didn't offer them to me. I guess they knew bribery would work with some and
not with others."
To pass the time, inmates would chat to each other, pray, read the Koran and
sing Islamic songs. In Camp X-Ray, they were given Mills and Boon-style
romance novels in Arabic, which they refused to read.
Describing medical treatment, Jamal said he knew of 11 men who had legs
amputated and two who lost toes and fingers. He was told that the Americans
had removed far more tissue than was necessary.
HE added: "The man in the cell next to me had frostbite in two fingers and
two toes. He also had it in his big toe, but they didn't treat that for a
year by which time they had to cut off much more than was needed.
"All the men who had lost limbs complained they would chop them off high up
and not bother to try to save as much as possible."
Jamal added that he didn't have close friends in Guantanamo, saying: "When I
did meet the other Brits, we would reminisce about home - particularly the
food.
"We were all obsessed with Scottish Highland Shortbread - we wanted some so
much.
"One of the Brits told me he was asked why he was a Muslim, because he ought
to be praying to the Queen."
Jamal, who is divorced with daughters aged three and eight and a son of
five, is convinced his refusal to succumb to mind-games gave him the will to
come through.
He said: "It was very, very hard at times, but I tried to think about
nothing but survival.
"I kept my thoughts from home as much as possible because it would drive me
crazy.
"About a year into my time, I had a dream. A voice said, 'You will here for
two years'.
"In my dream I said, 'Two years! You're joking'. But when I woke up, I was
calmer because at least that meant I would be getting out one day.
"I was sent to Guantanamo on February 11, 2002 and left on March 9, 2004, so
I was there for just over two years, just like the voice in the dream said."
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