Report Cites Torture in U.S. Prison

The United States operated a secret prison in Afghanistan as recently as last year, torturing detainees by chaining them to walls and forcing them to listen to loud music in total darkness for days, a human rights group alleged in a report released today.

The prison was near Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in the report based on the testimony of several detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who said they were also held at the Afghan facility.

According to the report, the detainees were tortured and mistreated by American and Afghan guards in civilian clothes. The report suggested the prison might have been run by the CIA.

“They were chained to walls, deprived of food and drinking water, and kept in total darkness with loud rap, heavy metal music, or other sounds blared for weeks,” the report said. “Some detainees said they were shackled in a manner that made it impossible to lie down or sleep.”

Human Rights Watch did not speak with the detainees because the U.S. has not allowed human rights groups to visit them. The report was compiled based on statements made by detainees to their lawyers, who passed them on to the group.

An Ethiopian-born Guantanamo detainee who grew up in Britain, Benyam Mohammad, reportedly told his lawyer he was held at the Afghan jail in 2004: “It was pitch black, no lights on in the rooms for most of the time. They hung me up. I was allowed a few hours of sleep on the second day, then hung up again, this time for two days.”

The report said the prison was closed last year.