Four file suit, claim they were abused at Guantanamo

WASHINGTON – Four British citizens, released from U.S. detention in Guantanamo, Cuba, this year, filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming they were repeatedly abused and tortured during their two years in the prison camp.

The four men include Shafiq Rasul, who was the lead plaintiff in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that granted judicial review to detainees.

Their suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, targets Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander at Guantanamo, and seven other officers. The four ex-detainees seek $10 million each in damages.

The four men claim their mistreatment included numerous beatings, extremes of temperature, the use of unmuzzled dogs, forced nakedness, threats of death and many hours of “short shackling.”

That technique meant “chaining the ankles and wrists closely together to force the detainee into a contorted and painful position,” the complaint says.

During the day, Rasul said in the suit, temperatures reached 100 degrees at the prison camp, and at night air conditioning was turned on full, lowering the temperature into the 40s.

The four detainees said they experienced some of their worst beatings when they arrived at Guantanamo, including being kicked, punched and slapped while they were hooded as U.S. soldiers announced, “You are arriving at your final destination.”

Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed, Jamal al Harith and Rasul were released in March and never charged by the United States or Britain. They alleged mistreatment in the British press soon after they got home.

“This case sets out in great detail the nightmarish tale they went through,” said Eric Lewis, one of the detainees’ attorneys. “This case is about accountability.”

Steve Lucas, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, said there have been rare cases of excessive force at Guantanamo. Of the ex-detainees’ suit, he said, “There is no substance to their claims.”

The four British men, who were turned over to U.S. forces in Afghanistan in late 2001, are using the Alien Tort Claims Act, which has become a legal tool in human rights cases, often by immigrants in the United States against their former captors.

Lewis and lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights said documents released by the Bush administration after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq show top officials were aware some treatment of prisoners violated international law.

Lawyers for the four men said their clients may be on a U.S. watch list for terrorists, and one wondered if he could be sent to Guantanamo if he tried to re-enter the United States. They hope to testify as their case proceeds, Lewis said.