UK: Lawyers for a former British detainee alleging torture at Guantanamo Bay have urged Washington to hand over videos they say show US captors assaulting Muslim prisoners.
"It is essential that the British government actually sees the videos and does not just rely on what the US government tells them is in them," said Ms Louise Christian, who is representing one former inmate, Mr Tarek Dergoul.
"We know these videos exist because the commander of Guantanamo Bay has confirmed this," she added.
Rights campaigners fear that tactics at Guantanamo Bay may have been similar to those notoriously used at the Abu Ghraib jail near Baghdad where photos and videos emerged earlier this year of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.
The US military denies abuse at Guantanamo.
Mr Dergoul, one of five Britons released from the prison for terrorism suspects in March, said he was repeatedly attacked by a punishment squad known as the Extreme Reaction Force during his 22-month detention without charge.
"When the ERF were called, they were always accompanied by someone with a video camera," said Mr Dergoul (26).
The British Foreign Office said it had asked Washington to confirm whether footage existed from Guantanamo and, if so, to give them access.
"We don't have an answer yet," a spokesman said.
Mr Dergoul's lawyers issued a statement yesterday detailing claims he first made soon after release.
They include allegations that guards stripped and photographed him naked; deliberately touched his private parts; put a "three-piece chain" round his limbs and waist; gave forcible injections and denied medical treatment.
He also alleged that they left him with no blankets in freezing conditions; threatened to send him to Morocco or Egypt for torture; insulted the Koran, Allah and Muslim prayers; showed pornographic images; beat him and used pepper-spray or Mace; and forcibly shaved him and deprived inmates of sleep.
"They put me on the floor and jumped on me. I was knocked out and lost consciousness as a result of being beaten," said Mr Dergoul in his lengthy testimony.
His accounts echo those of two other former British inmates who wrote an open letter to President George W. Bush alleging the use of shackles, dogs and loud music to torture them.
"The picture which emerges ... is one of a systematic regime of abuses directed and ordered by the top command and aimed at forcing detainees to make false statements in interrogations," Ms Christian said.
London notes that no such claims were made during eight visits to British detainees at the US military base in Cuba.
"That said, obviously we take all accusations of abuse seriously," added the Foreign Office spokesman. "At our request, the Americans are examining the allegations in detail and intend to respond." - (Reuters)