Was Binyam Mohamed Brutalized at Guantanamo in the Last Month?
by Glenn Greenwald
by
Glenn Greenwald
 The
Los Angeles Times
– February 20, 2009:
The Pentagon
has concluded that the military detention center at Guantanamo
Bay meets the standards for humane treatment of detainees established
in the Geneva Convention accords. . . .
The administration
official said the report's primary conclusions supported the Department
of Defense's long-standing contention that Guantanamo was in compliance
with the global convention, including Article 3, which requires
the humane treatment of prisoners taken in unconventional armed
conflicts, such as the war on terrorism.
"The
bottom line is that the report found that Guantanamo is in compliance
with the Geneva conventions, which we have maintained for several
years. So the report essentially validated our procedures and
processes," the official said.
The
Guardian, today:
Revealed:
full horror of Gitmo inmate's beatings
Binyam Mohamed
will return to Britain suffering from a huge range of injuries
after being beaten by US guards right up to the point of his
departure from Guantánamo Bay [on Saturday], according
to the first detailed accounts of his treatment inside the camp.
Mohamed will
arrive back tomorrow in the UK, where he was a British resident
between 1984 and 2002. During medical examinations last week,
doctors discovered injuries and ailments resulting from apparently
brutal treatment in detention.
Mohamed was
found to be suffering from bruising, organ damage, stomach complaints,
malnutrition, sores to feet and hands, severe damage to ligaments
as well as profound emotional and psychological problems which
have been exacerbated by the refusal of Guantánamo's guards
to give him counselling.
Mohamed's
British lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, said his client had been
beaten "dozens" of times inside the notorious US camp
in Cuba with the most recent abuse occurring during recent
weeks. He said: "He has a list of physical ailments that
cover two sheets of A4 paper. What Binyam has been through should
have been left behind in the middle ages."
[U.S.
Army] Lieutenant colonel Yvonne Bradley, Mohamed's US military
attorney, added: "He has been severely beaten. Sometimes
I don't like to think about it because my country is behind all
this." . . .
For reasons
that human rights groups and detainees' lawyers immediately pointed
out, this self-exonerating Pentagon report, from the start, was
suspect in the extreme. But a sign of how broken our discourse is
and how in love with ourselves we continue to be is that, on the
question of current Guantanamo conditions, the conclusions of the
United States Pentagon released this week were treated not only
as credible, but authoritative. If the DOD – which has long overseen
Guantanamo and continues to do so – says that everything is great
there, well, that's the end of that. What else is there to know?
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