RUSSIA:Russia has come under renewed attack from Human Rights Watch, which has accused Moscow of ignoring diplomatic assurances not to abuse former Guantánamo Bay inmates.
Detailing the treatment of the men in a lengthy report, the watchdog complains not just about Russia, but criticises the US for failing to ensure other countries stand by their promises to treat released detainees well.
The seven men and their families described frequent harassment by Russian police and security services, particularly the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, and the organised crime department of the ministry of the interior.
"I was told many times by the Russian authorities that after my time in Guantánamo, it wasn't necessary to prove I was a terrorist," one former detainee Airat Vakhitov told Human Rights Watch. "That any one of us could be thrown in jail because we were terrorists."
Two of the men were tortured and are in prison after investigations and trials that did not meet international fair trial standards. A third was also tortured and is currently in prison awaiting trial, while the other four are either in hiding or have fled abroad, claims Human Rights Watch.
"What happened to the former detainees is pretty standard for a lot of suspects in police custody in Russia," said Carroll Bogert, associate director at Human Rights Watch. "But that's just the point. The US government knew these men would likely be tortured and sent them back to Russia anyway."
Yesterday Russia's interior ministry and the Federal Security Service declined to comment.
The men were taken to the controversial detention centre for US enemy combatants in Cuba's Guantánamo Bay from Afghanistan in 2002. After being sent back to Russia in 2004, they were detained in custody for three months, but since then have faced harassment and fresh charges.
One of the men, Ravil Gumarov, was arrested for a local gas explosion in the Russian republic of Tartarstan in 2005. Mr Gumarov said he was beaten, deprived of sleep and shackled to a cage with his hands above his head until he confessed.
The report intends to highlight the irrelevance of assurance offered between countries that former prisoners will be treated fairly, argues Human Rights Watch.
"The Russian experience shows why diplomatic assurances simply don't work," Bogert said. "Governments with records of torture don't suddenly change their behaviour because the US government claims to have extracted some kind of assurance from them."
She said Austria, Canada, Georgia, Germany, The Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, Britain and the US had handed over prisoners on diplomatic assurances.