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Claims Habib was tortured in Camp X-Ray

May 20, 2004 - 8:41PM

Allegations a second Australian terror suspect, Mamdouh Habib, was tortured by his US captors in Guantanamo Bay were made tonight by a former detainee.

Former British detainee Tarek Dergoul made the claim as fresh allegations surfaced about the treatment in the US military prison of Adelaide suspect David Hicks.

Both Habib and Hicks have been held captive by the US at Guantanamo Bay for more than two years but are yet to be charged.

Mr Dergoul, who was recently released from Guantanamo Bay, said he saw Habib being punched and kicked and dragged by chains while screaming in agony.

He said Habib, a Sydney father-of-four, told him he had informed Australian consular officials of his treatment.

"I could see him being dragged by chains that were attached to his feet and him screaming in agony," Mr Dergoul told Channel Seven.

Mr Dergoul, 26, arrived at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba the same day as Habib and was held in the cell opposite him.

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He described the procedure when they arrived.

"The process was standard: you'd be stripped, our pictures would be taken, a full cavity search would be done," he said.

"From beginning to end it was just pure humiliation."

Habib was seized in Pakistan in October 2001 on suspicion of having terrorist links.

Mr Dergoul said he could hear Habib's screams from his cell and knew that he was being filmed.

"When you heard the person screaming, you would know that he's getting punched and kicked.

"And this was all filmed on camera ... I saw the camera that was filming him."

Habib's wife Maha and his lawyer, Stephen Hopper, travelled to London to meet Mr Dergoul.

They called for the tapes of the alleged torture to be released.

"The Australian Government should demand those videos and they should be made public," Mr Hopper said.

He claimed that Habib was depressed and was denied medication.

Mr Dergoul told Mrs Habib that interrogators informed her husband that his family was dead and that was why he had not written.

"He thinks we're dead, he doesn't believe ... God knows what they've done to him," Mrs Habib said.

The claims about Habib's treatment came as Hicks's former cellmate in Afghanistan where he was captured, said he too was tortured.

Shah Mohammed was quoted by a newspaper as saying the Australian was bashed there at least three times by US soldiers.

Mr Mohammed, who was released last year after spending three months in the cell next to Hicks at Guantanamo Bay, said the Australian was also tied up by hands and feet in the Afghanistan jail by his US captors.

Hicks's lawyer Stephen Kenny accused Prime Minister John Howard of dishonesty in saying Australia had not received complaints about the alleged mistreatment of Hicks.

Mr Howard questioned Mr Mohammed's allegations, saying it was a curious coincidence the claims emerged after revelations of mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq by US forces.

"We do have to ... take those allegations with a grain of salt," Mr Howard told the Nine Network.

Mr Kenny said Hicks had suffered abuse far worse than Mohammed had detailed.

He urged the Australian Government to demand a US Congress inquiry into the abuse allegations, which Mr Mohammed said were videotaped.