U.S. denies torturing detainees

Associated Press

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba – Detainees from the war in Afghanistan are being interrogated in compliance with U.S. laws and are not being drugged or tortured, the general in charge of detention said Saturday.

“The questioning that goes on is within the bounds of normal legal procedures that are in effect within the United States,” Brig. Gen. Mike Lehnert told reporters. “For example, there is no torture, whips, there are no bright lights, drugging. We are a nation of laws.”

Journalists allowed about 100 feet from the detention area could see detainees on stretchers being carried from the wooden buildings of the makeshift interrogation center to their open-air temporary cells at Camp X-Ray.

They appeared to be among the one-third of the 158 detainees here who U.S. officials say have war wounds inflicted before they were captured in Afghanistan, mainly gunshots to the legs and arms.

The United States has refused to identify the detainees, except to say that they come from 25 countries, as Lehnert confirmed Saturday.

A few countries have said the United States has informed them it is holding their nationals at this Navy base on the eastern end of Cuba, among them Australia, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and Yemen.

Saudi Arabia, which says more than 100 of the prisoners are its citizens, has asked that they be returned home for interrogation.

France and Britain have asked that their nationals be returned home to face trial. Critics fear the detainees may be tried by secret military panels empowered to impose the death sentence.

U.S. officials have said they are considering options that include sending some of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners to their home countries after interrogation, but Lehnert indicated there would be many provisos.

“If we find out that an individual is what I refer to as an incidental terrorist, it may be prudent (to send him home), and if the U.S. government makes a decision they should be repatriated and their country of origin agrees to it, obviously that would be something we would work through.”

U.S. civilian and military officials began interrogating detainees last week.

The United States has stopped bringing detainees from Afghanistan, where it is holding at least 370 more prisoners.

Lehnert said there were no immediate plans to resume flights, but he said dozens more cells have been built and the temporary prison now can accommodate 320 inmates. The cells have see-through walls of chain-link fencing set on a concrete slab and topped by a corrugated metal roof.

U.S. officials say the Guantanamo detainees are among the most dangerous captured during the U.S.-led war and belong to the ousted Afghan Taliban regime and the international terrorist network that it sheltered, Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida.

Lehnert said the toughest job for soldiers guarding them is balancing the potential danger and “losing sight of the fact these individuals are human beings.”

“We need to understand they are dangerous, they have the potential to hurt you, but at the same time they require humane treatment. That’s the difficult part,” he said.

Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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