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Hicks recounts prison 'terror'

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Australian terror suspect David Hicks says he was forcibly injected with drugs and had his head smashed into asphalt while blindfolded as part of his interrogation at Guantanamo Bay.

 

Hicks has also told of being beaten for hours at a time, denied food and forced to run in leg shackles that ripped the skin off his ankles.

 

In an affidavit which details publicly for the first time his own claims of torture in Guantanamo Bay, Hicks said he was offered a prostitute in return for spying on other prisoners.

 

He also said his fellow detainees were terrorised by attack dogs.

 

Hicks has been held at the US detention centre in Cuba since January 2002, after being detained while fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan a few months earlier.

 

"I have been struck with hands, fists, and other objects (including rifle butts)," Hicks, 29, of Adelaide, said in the affidavit that was sealed in August and now released by his lawyers.

 

 

 

 

"I have had my head rammed into asphalt several times (while blindfolded).

 

"I have had handcuffs placed on me so tightly, and for so long (as much as 14-15 hours) that my hands were numb for a considerable period thereafter.

 

"I have been struck while under the influence of sedatives that were forced upon me by injection.

 

"I was told repeatedly that if I cooperated during the course of these interrogations, I would be sent home to Australia after the interrogations were concluded.

 

"Failure to cooperate meant the loss of the ordinary necessities of living, such as showers, sufficient food, relief from ... regular abuse."

 

Hicks said he watched members of the Internal Reaction Force (IRF) - a military squad used to subdue problem detainees - enter a man's cell and "brutalise him with the aid of an attack dog".

 

He said the IRF invasions were so common, detainees referred to the practice as being "IRF'ed".

 

"I have seen detainees suffer serious injuries as a result of being IRF'ed," he said.

 

He said after he was moved to Camp Echo, he was held in solitary confinement and did not see sunlight for eight months.

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