[Biggest
Islamic
web site in the
U.S.]
P.O. Box 356, Kingsville, MD 21087.
Phone: 410-435-5000.
Disclaimer: Views expressed are not necessarily
shared by editorial committee.
Responses (positive or negative) up to 250 words are welcome.
Names will be withheld on request.
----------------------------------------------------------
GUANTANAMO BAY INNOCENTS RELEASED AFTER A YEAR
AND SEVEN MONTHS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2886245.stm
Afghan prisoners released from
US
detention in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have
told of being kept in small cages and
interrogated dozens of times to try to
prove links to al-Qaeda or the Taleban.
The 18 men returned to Afghanistan last week.
Most did not complain about conditions at the US
base, but were angry at the
way they were arrested and at what they said was
brutal treatment by Afghan
jailers before they left.
They also condemned how long it took to prove
their innocence.
The men are only the second batch to leave
Guantanamo Bay since October, when
three men were freed.
'Beatings and torture'
One man, Salaiman Shah, said he was a used-car
salesman accused by troops of
fighting with the Taleban.
He said he was held at the notorious Sherberghan
prison in northern
Afghanistan by troops loyal to warlord General
Abdul Rashid Dostam.
"At Sherberghan life was inhuman, all the
prisoners had diarrhoea, some had
tuberculosis, there was no food for days at a
time and we were subjected to
beatings and torture."
Mr Shah said the treatment at Guantanamo Bay was
harsh but better.
A second returnee, Murtaza, said prisoners were
sometimes hooded and
handcuffed in their two-metre by two-metre cages
in Cuba.
"Some of us were interrogated 20 times, others 50
times, others 60. But the
food was good and they did not beat us," he said.
"Initially they told us it would take one month
for the investigation and we
would be released immediately if we were proven
innocent.
"We spent two months in Sherberghan, five months
in Kandahar, and more than
one year in Guantanamo and finally now they
release us because we are
innocent."
Mr Murtaza said he had been forced to fight with
the Taleban.
Deaf
Sher Gulab, from Jalalabad, said he did not have
a hard time in Cuba "because
God was with me".
He was caught while working as a labourer in
Pakistan.
"I am not angry at the Americans, but I am angry
at the Pakistanis because
they arrested me," he said.
A fourth man, Bismillah, said he was arrested as
an al-Qaeda suspect because
he was deaf and could not understand the
Americans' questions.
Guantanamo Bay still holds 660 detainees, many
arrested in Afghanistan.
Washington describes them as unlawful combatants
who can be held indefinitely
without trial.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2003-03-27 Thu 15:11ct