Red Cross accuses US of prisoner torture

The Red Cross has accused the US of using methods that are “tantamount to torture” on terror suspects held in a military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The New York Times said international Red Cross delegates found, during a June visit to Guantanamo. That US authorities had devised and refined a system to break the will of the prisoners, using humiliation, solitary confinement, temperature extremes and forced positions.

It said the ICRC has determined the US military used psychological and physical coercion “tantamount to torture.”

The Red Cross would only say today that American officials have failed to address concerns about some significant problems in the treatment of terror suspects detained at Guantanamo Bay.

It refused “to publicly confirm or deny” whether details in a New York Times article about torture allegations were from its reports to US officials about its findings during Guantanamo visits.

A Pentagon spokesman in Washington, however, confirmed that Red Cross officials have “made their view known” that the indefinite detention of terror suspects amounts to torture.

Lawrence Di Rita, spokesman for Defence Secretary Donald. Rumsfeld, said, “It’s their point of view,” but it is not shared by the Bush administration.

Di Rita said he was unaware of any Red Cross accusations that specific interrogation techniques or treatment of detainees amount to torture.

Human rights campaigners said they were not surprised by the allegations after the leaking of a ICRC report last May describing mistreatment of US prisoners in Iraq.

The international Red Cross also found that some doctors were telling interrogators about prisoners’ weaknesses in ”a flagrant violation of medical ethics.”

“We have said, including publicly, that there are significant problems regarding the conditions of detention and the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo that still have not been addressed by US authorities,” said Antonella Notari, chief spokeswoman for the international Red Cross.

“We continue our discussions with the US authorities in this regard,” she added, but said the agency was sticking to its policy of discussing the details of its findings with U.S. officials because it found the confidential approach achieved the best results.

An agency statement said its policy of confidentiality ”has made it possible for the ICRC to have repeated and regular access to those held at Guantanamo Bay and to speak with them in private.”

Notari said it was possible that ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger would go to Washington soon to meet administration officials.

The US is holding hundreds of suspected terrorists – including four Britons - captured in Afghanistan and Iraq at their Cuban military base.