Thursday October 28, 2004
Four Britons who claim they were repeatedly tortured at Guantánamo Bay yesterday began suing Donald Rumsfeld and other US military leaders for £6m each in compensation.
Defendants in the law suit also include the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Richard Myers, and the former head of the prison camp, Major General Geoffrey Miller, now in charge at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
The four Britons were released in March after spending nearly three years at Guantánamo in conditions that have been condemned by human rights groups.
The action has been brought by the so-called Tipton three, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed, and Jamal al-Harith from Manchester. All deny links or involvement in terrorism. The law suit alleges the Britons were "repeatedly struck with rifle butts, punched, kicked and slapped. They were short-shackled in painful stress positions for many hours ... causing deep flesh wounds and permanent scarring.
"Plaintiffs were also threatened with unmuzzled dogs, forced to strip naked, subjected to repeated forced body-cavity searches, intentionally subjected to extremes of heat and cold for the purpose of causing suffering ..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1337609,00.html