“In Gitmo, I was punished with 30 days in darkness for feeding iguanas”

Murat Kurnaz was arrested in the street and sent to Guantanamo Bay for torture. After five years, America released him without charge. To this day, the US has given no explanation or said sorry.

Guantanamo Bay continues to wreck lives, despite President Obama's pledge to shut the notorious prison. RT spoke to one former prisoner, Murat Kurnaz, who says the US has not issued even a simple apology for his years of torment.

Attempts to justify torture seem outrageous to those who have been unjustly subjected to inhumane treatment at US prisons overseas. Murat Kurnaz was captured in Pakistan in 2001. He was working for an NGO that helped young people there to quit drugs and adopt a healthier lifestyle. He was sent to Guantanamo and tortured – for five years. The vast majority of the hundreds of individuals who have been held at Guantanamo since 2002, just like Murat, are said to be of no intelligence value whatsoever. Some of them were children, when they were captured, like Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, who was just 15 when he was taken into US custody. He said because he was tortured, he was ready to say anything the torturers wanted to hear to stop the pain.

(source, source, source, source)

Also: Human Rights Watch report on evidence of torture (download pdf)

This systemic evil is truly monstrous and disgusting -- It must be stopped, investigated, and prosecuted IMMEDIATELY!

Update: This NEWS brings a little hope!

Documents show detainee was abused in US custody

By JILL LAWLESS (AP) (source1, source2)

LONDON — A British resident was beaten, shackled and threatened while in U.S. custody in Pakistan in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, according to a newly published summary of intelligence reports sent from the CIA to Britain's MI5 spy agency.

The information, released by a court Wednesday over the objections of the British government, shows that British officials knew as early as 2002 about the treatment of Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed — one of hundreds of young Muslim men scooped up around the world at the time.

The White House said the ruling would make intelligence sharing with Britain more difficult in the future.

The summary adds to growing evidence of Mohamed's mistreatment during his seven years in American custody. In November, a U.S. district judge in Washington found evidence of even harsher abuse while Mohamed was held in Morocco for two years before he was eventually moved to Guantanamo Bay and charged with plotting with al-Qaida to bomb American apartment buildings....

In a ruling in the District Court for the District of Columbia in November, Judge Gladys Kessler said Mohamed had been tortured over a period of two years while being interviewed by FBI and CIA agents.

She said Mohamed was beaten with a leather strap, subjected to mock execution, kept in darkness, deprived of sleep, drugged, hung by his wrists and "cut on the chest and then on the penis and the testicles with a scalpel (about once a month for over a year)."

She said the U.S. government "does not challenge or deny the accuracy of (Mohamed)'s story of brutal treatment."