My
Hell In Camp X-Ray
By Rosa Prince
and Gary Jones
13 March, 2004
The
Mirror
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and food up to 10 years out-of-date left inmates malnourished.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."