Guardian Utd (August 5): Red Cross says US abuse could be war crime

[Jack Rabbit]

EDITED to fix link

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Thursday August 5

US abuse could be war crime
Red Cross says Tipton Three may have case
By Vikram Dodd and Tania Branigan

Repeated abuses allegedly suffered by three British prisoners at the hands of US interrogators and guards in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba could amount to war crimes, the Red Cross said yesterday.
The organisation, which maintains a rigidly neutral stance in public, took the unusual step of voicing its concerns in uncompromising language after the former detainees, known as the Tipton Three, revealed that they had been beaten, shackled, photographed naked and in one incident questioned at gunpoint while in US custody.
Their vivid account of the harrowing conditions at the camp, as told to their lawyers and published for the first time in yesterday's Guardian, has reignited the debate about the treatment of prisoners and the British government's role in their questioning and detention.
Last night the Red Cross was joined by the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, which argued that if the allegations were true they indicated systematic abuse, amounting to torture.

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[muriel_volestrangler]

1. See discussion in LBN

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x729142

also, you haven't given a link this time - not up to your usual standards, Jack! ;-)

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Guardian Utd (August 4): British detainees tell stories of Guantánamo

The referencing story to the above.

From the GuardianUnlimited (UK)
Dated Wednesday August 4

Questioned at gunpoint, shackled, forced to pose naked.
British detainees tell their stories of Guantánamo Bay
By Vikram Dodd and Tania Branigan

Britain and the US last night faced fresh allegations of abuses after a British terror suspect said an SAS soldier had interrogated him for three hours while an American colleague pointed a gun at him and threatened to shoot him.
The allegation is contained in a new dossier detailing repeated beatings and humiliation suffered by three Britons who were captured in Afghanistan, then held in Guantánamo Bay for two years, before being released in March without charge.
Rhuhel Ahmed, one of the "Tipton Three", claims in the 115-page dossier that shortly after his capture in November 2001 he was interviewed in Afghanistan by a British interrogator who said he was from the SAS. Mr Ahmed alleges he was taken by US guards to be interrogated by the British officer in a tent. "One of the US soldiers had a gun to his head and he was told if he moved they would shoot him," the report says. The SAS officer pressed him to admit he had gone to Afghanistan to fight a holy war. Last night the Ministry of Defence said it would investigate the allegation.
A spokesman said: "The British army follows the rules laid out in the Geneva convention and soldiers are told to follow that. It is not permissible to point guns at people's heads during interrogation. We would investigate if any allegation of that nature is made."
The dossier, based on two months of interviews by the men's lawyers, provides the first full account by the three Britons of their ordeal as terror suspects.

Read more.