JURIST - Paper Chase: Military report: Gitmo detainee degraded and abused

[JURIST] A military investigator appearing Wednesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee [official website] told lawmakers that certain terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] were degraded and abused by interrogators, but not tortured. Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt [official profile], charged with investigating abuse allegations made by FBI agents at Guantanamo, testified and presented a report to the committee that detailed the treatment of Mohamed al-Qahtani, coined the 20th 9/11 highjacker. The report said that US interrogators told Qahtani that he was a homosexual, and forced him to dance with a male interrogator during sessions that often lasted up to 20 hours a day. It concluded, however, that no torture had occured. Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, head of Southern Command, later defended the actions of then-jail commander Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, and refused to reprimand Miller as Schmidt recommended [JURIST report], stating that Miller had violated no law by allowing the interrogations to proceed. Miller was subsequently assigned to run the Abu Ghraib facilty in Baghdad. Reuters has more.

5:20 PM ET 07/14/05 - The Defense Department has posted an online copy of the Schmidt report [PDF] entitled "Investigation into FBI Allegations of Detainee Abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Detention Facility."

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