Guantanamo prisoner says form of waterboarding used

SAN JUAN - An Algerian prisoner at Guantanamo Bay has accused his guards of using a form of waterboarding on him, his lawyer said yesterday, marking the first allegation that the harsh interrogation technique was used at the US military base.

A human rights commission of the Organization of American States said yesterday that it has asked the State Department to ensure that Djamel Ameziane is not mistreated and receives medical care.

Officials at Guantanamo and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but they have said repeatedly that all Guantanamo detainees are treated humanely.

Waterboarding, an interrogation tactic that produces the sensation of drowning, has been criticized as a form of torture.

Ameziane, who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo since February 2002 without being charged with crimes, told his lawyer, Wells Dixon, that guards at the base placed a water hose between his nose and mouth and ran it for several minutes.

Ameziane said they repeated the procedure several times, nearly suffocating him.

"I had the impression that my head was sinking in water," Ameziane, 41, wrote his lawyer in a letter. "I still have psychological injuries, up to this day. Simply thinking of it gives me the chills."

According to Ameziane's account, during the same alleged incident the guards applied pepper spray all over his body, hosed him down, and left him shackled and shivering in wet clothes in front of an air conditioner in an interrogation room.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused coordinator of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and at least two other prominent detainees at the military base in southeast Cuba were waterboarded, but this occurred at CIA secret prisons before they were transferred to Guantanamo.

Dixon said in a telephone interview that the alleged abuse happened early during Ameziane's confinement at Guantanamo.

Lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a law group that represents scores of Guantanamo detainees, filed a petition Aug. 6 on behalf of Ameziane with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, asking that it intercede with the United States to protect the detainee.

The law group said in a statement that the commission, which is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States, agreed and issued "urgent precautionary measures" with the United States on Wednesday.

An official with the OAS-affiliated group confirmed it has asked the State Department to ensure the detainee is treated humanely, given medical treatment, and not transferred to a country where he could be tortured. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to publicly discuss the case.

Several Algerian detainees have resisted being repatriated, saying they feared torture by security forces in their North African country upon their return.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is empowered to request that a member state adopt specific "precautionary measures" to prevent human rights abuses, but can also urge the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to order that measures be taken, and can submit cases to the court. The United States is a member of the OAS.