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<font size=3>Guantanamo detainee claims abuse <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=3><b>Al-Qurani said he has been
subjected to ill-treatment almost every day</b></font> <br>
<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/04/2009414233431153300.html" eudora="autourl">
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/04/2009414233431153300.html</a>
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An inmate in the US prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has told Al
Jazeera that he has been beaten while in custody and had tear gas used on
him after refusing to leave his cell.<br><br>
Mohammad al-Qurani, a Chadian national, said in a phone call to Al
Jazeera that the alleged ill-treatment "started about 20 days"
before Barack Obama became US president and "since then I've been
subjected to it almost every day".<br><br>
"Since Obama took charge he has not shown us that anything will
change," he said.<br><br>
On his second day in office, Obama ordered the closure of the prison,
which has been heavily criticised by rights groups over reports of
ill-treatment of detainees.<br><br>
Obama also signed an order ending the harsh interrogation of prisoners -
including the waterboarding technique that causes detainees to feel like
they are drowning.<br><br>
The prison camp was set up by the Bush administration in 2002 to hold
prisoners it detained as part of its so-called war on terror.<br><br>
Several hundred detainees have since been released but more than 240
prisoners remain there, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is
suspected of planning the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.<br><br>
<b>'No change'<br><br>
</b>After being transferred to a different area of the prison for those
awaiting release from Guantanamo Bay, al-Qurani was allowed to make phone
calls and he called Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman who spent six
years in Guantanamo before being released last year.<br><br>
Al-Hajj said that while the US did have a new administration, "there
has been no change in the administration of Guantanamo".<br><br>
"The people managing the detainees there haven't changed yet. These
are the same people who were there during the Bush years and so they use
the same methods," al-Hajj said.<br><br>
Describing a specific incident, which took place after change in the US
administration, al-Qurani said he had refused to leave his cell because
they were "not granting me my rights", such as being able to
walk around, interact with other inmates and have "normal
food". <br><br>
A group of six soldiers wearing protective gear and helmets entered his
cell, accompanied by one soldier carrying a camera and one with tear gas,
he said.<br><br>
"They had a thick rubber or plastic baton they beat me with. They
emptied out about two canisters of tear gas on me," he told Al
Jazeera.<br><br>
"After I stopped talking, and tears were flowing from my eyes, I
could hardly see or breathe.<br><br>
"They then beat me again to the ground, one of them held my head and
beat it against the ground. I started screaming to his senior 'see what
he's doing, see what he's doing' [but] his senior started laughing and
said 'he's doing his job'.<br><br>
"He broke one of my front teeth. Of course they didn't film the
blood, they filmed my back so it doesn't show."<br><br>
<b>Pentagon reaction<br><br>
</b>Al Jazeera provided detailed information of al-Qurani's mistreatment
claim to the Pentagon and the US justice department but only received a
reply from Navy Lt-Cmdr Brook DeWalt, a Guantanamo spokesman.<br><br>
"I have no record of authenticity of this," he told Al Jazeera,
referring to al-Qurani's accusations.<br><br>
"It is an alleged phone transcript. ... We don't have any evidence
supporting or substantiating any of these claims." <br><br>
Ahmed Ghappour, a lawyer for Reprieve, a human rights group representing
some of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, told Al Jazeera last month that
conditions at the facility were deteriorating.<br><br>
"There has been an increase in the number of reported incidents in
Camp Five of Guantanamo Bay, that's one of the isolation camps," he
said.<br><br>
"I filed at least three sets of complaints since December 22 with
the military and each one of those complaints called for an
investigation, specified guards by number, specified incidents by dates
and I've not heard back from a single one of these complaints that I've
filed."<br><br>
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