Rights group blasts 'flawed' Guantanamo probe

A London-based human rights group accused the US military of failing to adequately investigate the latest allegations of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay and urged officials to open the detention centre to more independent monitors.

An investigation was launched in October by US Southern Command, which oversees the US naval base in south-eastern Cuba, after a legally-trained Marine reported that guards she met at Guantanamo bragged about beating war-on-terror detainees.

But Amnesty International said the probe was “flawed” because the chief investigator, Army colonel Richard Bassett, did not interview any detainees before concluding there was no evidence of mistreatment.

A report by Bassett would be reviewed by the Pentagon Inspector General’s office to ensure that it sufficiently addressed the issues raised by the complaint, said Bill Goehring, an office spokesman.

But Amnesty said the US administration should not be left to investigate itself.

“US authorities should allow independent bodies, including Amnesty International, to visit the detention centre and interview all prisoners in order to ensure that their complaints are not going unheard,” the group said.

Representatives from the Red Cross are allowed access to Guantanamo detainees, but keep their findings and any government recommendations confidential.

Bassett’s recommendations, approved on Wednesday by the US Navy admiral in charge of Southern Command, called for no disciplinary action against the guards named by Marine Sgt Heather Cerveny, a member of a detainee’s defence team.

She said sailors she met inside a Guantanamo bar in September described beating detainees as common practice.

Marine Lt Col Colby Vokey, Cerveny’s boss, said assigning the investigation to the Miami-based command in charge of the Caribbean naval base “is like having a wolf round up the sheep”.

Officials say a dozen internal reviews of detention operations in recent years have not found a culture that condones mistreatment at Guantanamo, where nearly 400 men are held on suspicion of links to al Qaida or the Taliban.

“Abuse is not tolerated,” said Navy Cmdr Robert Durand, a Guantanamo spokesman. “We take all allegations of abuse seriously and support all investigations fully.”

Guards at Guantanamo have faced disciplinary proceedings for at least eight substantiated cases of abuse, according to documents released to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Those cases, reported during 2004, included incidents of a guard striking a detainee with a handheld radio after he was subdued during a disturbance, the use of pepper spray on a detainee, and a female interrogator who sat in a detainee’s lap and ran her fingers through his hair.

Officials insist many other claims of abuse – made through lawyers or to military review panels – are invented or exaggerated as a tactic to damage their American captors.