UK: Three Britons released from Guantanamo Bay published a dossier yesterday that charges authorities with systematic abuse, including being interrogated at gunpoint and photographed naked at the prison.
The claims by the "Tipton Three" - all young Muslims from the central English town of Tipton who were detained in Afghanistan in 2002 - were the latest in a litany of abuse claims about the camp at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The dossier was released at a news briefing in New York, where rights lawyer Mr Michael Ratner said the mistreatment the three described was "off the charts in terms of legality".
Mr Ratner and other human-rights lawyers said the Guantanamo interrogators' actions were inhumane and damaged the image of the US and Britain.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on specific allegations.
"The United States prohibits, and does not condone, abuse of detainees," said the spokesman, Air Force Maj Michael Shavers. He added that the military "operates a professional detention facility at Guantanamo that is providing valuable information in the war on terrorism".
Mr Ratner, whose Centre for Constitutional Rights secured a victory for Guantanamo detainees in June when the US Supreme Court ruled that they be allowed access to the US legal system, said interrogators forced false confessions of links with al-Qaeda out of the men.
"What we are talking about here is false leads, false confessions and going after the wrong people and what you get is wrong information," Mr Ratner said. "If you really want to get to the bottom of terrorism, get real information."
Human Rights Watch lawyer Ms Jamie Fellner told reporters that she believed there was a pattern in the US war on terrorism and the interrogations of detainees in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and Iraq.
"What we see time and time again is not a few rogue soldiers, but a deliberate decision by high-ranking people in the administration to push as far as they could and well beyond the limits of what is acceptable treatment," Ms Fellner said.
The 115-page dossier said one of the three - who were among five Britons freed in March - was questioned for three hours in Afghanistan under threat of being shot.
"One of the US soldiers had a gun to his head and he was told that if he moved they would shoot him," while an SAS interrogator pressed Mr Rhuhel Ahmed to admit he was in Afghanistan for holy war, the report said.
In London, the Foreign Office said in a statement that none of the three men described systematic abuse during visits by British officials and added that Washington was examining the complaints at Britain's request.
The statement said that the British security service interviewed the men at Guantanamo and "throughout, we have sought to meet the twin objectives of pursuing the fight against international terrorism while safeguarding the interests of the British citizens detained abroad."
In Afghanistan and at the base, Mr Ahmed and the other two, Mr Shafiq Rasul and Mr Asif Iqbal, say they were kicked and beaten, shackled in awkward positions, deprived of sleep, given anal searches, forcibly shaved, photographed naked, shown pornography and intimidated by dogs.
British police were questioning 12 men yesterday as community leaders complained that Muslims were being targeted too often.
Few details have emerged about the anti-terror operation, but there was speculation that police had targeted suspected al-Qaeda cells.
Security services say foreign al-Qaeda operatives are active in the UK, and there is also a threat from Britons sympathetic to the ideology of Osama bin Laden.
Police only said that the men, in their 20s and 30s, were suspected of "being involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism", and were arrested as part of a pre-planned, intelligence-led operation. Police declined to say whether there was a link between intelligence from Pakistan and the UK - (Reuters)