US: At Least One ‘Recidivist’ Tortured to Confess to Terrorism (HRW)

Russian Authorities Severely Beat an Ex-Guantanamo Detainee
NEW YORK - May 21 - The US Defense Department's claim that a former Guantanamo detainee is a "recidivist" to terrorism appears to be based on a confession obtained by Russian authorities through torture, Human Rights Watch said today.

According to media reports, an unreleased Pentagon study has concluded that about one in seven of the 534 detainees who have been transferred from the Guantanamo Bay detention center returned to terrorism or militant activity.

The former detainee, Rasul Kudaev, has been held for more than three years in pretrial detention in Nalchik, a city in southern Russia, where he is accused of participating in an October 2005 armed uprising against the local government. Human Rights Watch's investigations into Kudaev's case found that he was severely beaten soon after his arrest to confess to crimes.

"If the Pentagon relied on forced confessions for the evidence to prove recidivism, then its conclusions are pretty questionable," said Carroll Bogert, associate director of Human Rights Watch. "Terrorism is a label that is widely abused by many of the governments who have taken back their citizens from Guantanamo" ... http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/05/21-18


Related thread:
1 in 7 Transferred From Guantánamo Returns to Terrorism, Pentagon
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3886443

crime. They beat the shit out of you daily. They demand you tell them the lies they want to hear or they will kill you.

Then you are released and they ask, "why do you hate America?"

:dem: