Guantanamo Bay abuse claims spark probe
Around 450 prisoners are at Guantanamo Bay
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Saturday, 14, Oct 2006 08:26
An internal investigation has been launched into abuse at the Guantanamo Bay prison after a marine sergeant claimed she overheard guards boasting about abusing detainees.
Sergeant Heather Cerveny, 23, prompted the Pentagon investigation after filing the complaint last week and attaching a sworn statement over the comments made by several guards at the prison.
The comments were overhead by Sgt Cerveny three weeks ago when she made a visit to the prison as a legal aide to a military lawyer.
In the statement she wrote that she overheard guards talking about their own acts of abusing detainees: "The one sailor specifically said 'I took the detainee by the head and smashed his head into the cell door'.
"From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice. Everyone in the group laughed at the others' stories of beating detainees," she continued.
In an interview with the Associated Press news agency the sergeant said that the stories she overheard seemed to be part of a "general consensus" around Guantanamo Bay that it was ok to mistreat prisoners.
The statement has renewed calls to close the prison, which houses about 450 detainees.
"The continuing detention without fair trial of prisoners is unacceptable in terms of human rights, but it is also ineffective in terms of counter-terrorism," commented British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett.