All Blog Posts from World Watch

Numerous former detainees at the U.S. military facility at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, held without charge during the period of 2002-2008, claim that they were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs and firearms, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported Wednesday.

In its investigation, broadcast and also published on the BBC News Web site, 27 former inmates of Bagram were interviewed over a period of two months. The men had been accused of belonging to or helping either al Qaeda or the Taliban, but were never charged or tried, and all were eventually released — many with an apology.

"They did things that you would not do against animals, let alone to humans," said one former inmate known as Dr. Khandan.

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Twenty-five former prisoners at the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan have told the British Broadcasting Corp. they were abused and neglected while in custody.

The BBC investigation interviewed 27 former terror detainees across Afghanistan who were detained and then released without charge from the Bagram Air Base. All but two claimed abuse.

All but two of the former prisoners, held at Bagram between 2002 and 2008, alleged abuse and neglect. Many claimed they were subjected to beatings, stress positions, over-exposure to heat or cold, loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers, sleep deprivation and threats with dogs. Four said their lives were threatened at gunpoint during interrogations.

"They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans," one former inmate told the network.

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The United States is nearing a deal that would send nearly 100 Yemeni detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia, according to a Wall Street Journal report Thursday.

Officials told the Journal the deal could speed up President Obama's plan to close the U.S. military facility that houses alleged terrorists.

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After four years in Guantanamo, and nearly seven years in the custody of the U.S., or one of its allies, a former British resident walked down the steps of an executive jet at a U.K. airbase.

Binyam Mohamed’s return to the U.K. may prove to be deeply embarrassing, for both the British and American governments. Mohamed claims he was brutally tortured in a covert Moroccan prison run by the CIA, and that British intelligence agents were complicit in his torture.

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Five days after President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay within a year, two Saudis who were released from the controversial U.S. prison in 2007 renewed their pledge to attack western interests in a video released by Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula on the internet today.

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President Obama has long promised that one of his first actions in office would be to close the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It’s a move aimed at repairing this country's tarnished reputation. The U.S. has held over 700 "enemy combatants" – many of them without charge – in a legal black hole for seven years.

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One of Britain's biggest newspapers says the U.K. may volunteer to let in terror suspects currently penned up at America's Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Why would they do that? Good way to make friends.

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