U.S. report reveals Guantanamo abuses

11/5/2004 1:50:00 PM GMT

A prisoner was forced to stand and kneel so many times that he was bruised, a barber gave bad hair cuts to inmates, and a female interrogator ran her fingers through a detainee’s hair and climbed on his lap, the U.S. government said in the most detailed report of eight abuse cases at its Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba.

Those accused of the abuse have been demoted, reprimanded or sent for more training, according to an 800-word U.S. military report.

The details of torture and abuse at Guantanamo came after defense lawyers for many detainees challenged evidence provided by the government, saying some could have been extracted by force.

Only four detainees have been officially charged at Guantanamo, where most are detained without charge or access to attorneys. So far, the U.S. military has reported 34 suicide attempts among prisoners.

Guantanamo's new commander said that lessons have been learned from previous abuse cases. "They've not been mistreated, they've not been tortured in any respect," Army Brig. Gen. Jay Hood said on Wednesday.

However, human rights observers are not convinced. "We're confident that there's more information out there that hasn't been released," said Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, now responsible for U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, assigned the Guantanamo prison from November 2002 to March 2004 with a mission to obtain better intelligence. Most abuses reported in August by James R. Schlesinger, who led a U.S. Congressional committee to probe into abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, took place under Miller's watch.

Details of 8 Guantanamo abuse cases

This week, the Department of Defense provided details of the eight Guantanamo abuse cases, Schlesinger said. No names were mentioned.

In one incident, a female interrogator took off her uniform top in front of a prisoner, ran her fingers through his hair and sat on his lap in April 2003. A supervisor monitoring the session cancelled it, and the woman was reprimanded and sent for more training, the military reported.

The same month, an interrogator told military soldiers to force a prisoner to stand and kneel so many times that his knees were bruised, the government said. The interrogator received a written reprimand and Miller reportedly stopped use of that technique.

In a separate case, a guard was charged with abuse and assault after he sprayed a prisoner with a hose in September 2002. The guard was reduced in rank and reassigned. In March 2003, a military soldier sprayed pepper spray on a prisoner. The policeman was acquitted by a court martial.

Incidents this year also include a camp barber who gave two "unusual haircuts." One government official said on condition of anonymity that the haircuts were reverse mohawks. The barber and his company were reprimanded.

Undercover military officer attacked

At least one military insider at Guantanamo has gone public with abuse charges- a military police officer who was badly wounded after going undercover as a prisoner.

National Guardsman Sean Baker said that the attack occurred in November 2002. He said that he was forced to wear an orange jumpsuit, stay in a cell and wait for an Initial Response Force — the team who handles misbehaving prisoners.

Baker said in his latest statements during a CBS television program broadcasted on Wednesday; "my face was down. And of course, they're pushing it down against the steel floor, you know, my right temple, pushing it down against the floor,"

The incident was purportedly recorded, one of some 500 hours of tapes that the military has refused to publicly release.

Baker said that he tried to tell his attackers that he was an officer but they repeatedly hit his head against the floor. Baker was flown to a naval hospital in Virginia where doctors said that he suffered a brain injury. He has been plagued by seizures since, he said.