LONDON, June 2: The United States has operated more than a dozen “floating prisons” to hold and question suspected Islamist extremists as part of its so-called “war on terror”, a British rights group said on Monday.

Reprieve, the legal action charity, said it believed as many as 17 ships had been used to interrogate prisoners “under torturous conditions before being rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations”.

The US military has previously confirmed that it has used ships to hold prisoners during its operations in Afghanistan.

Other bodies, including the Council of Europe, national parliaments, the media and former prisoners, have also raised the issue, Reprieve said. But the Pentagon denied the allegations.

“There are no prison ships,” spokesman Colonel Gary Keck said. “There are no detention facilities on any ships. Sometimes there have been transports on ships, but not as a detention facility.”

Asked what he meant by a “detention facility”, Keck said that “detention is a long-term place to be”.

A US defence official added that it was possible US Navy ships had been used as a temporary “holding arrangement” until combatants taken off the battlefield could be moved to more permanent locations.

“A ship would be used as a holding arrangement,” the official said.

The best known case of a combatant being held on a ship is that of John Walker Lindh, the “American Taliban” who was held aboard the USS Pelelium in late 2001, then transferred to the USS Bataan until Jan 2002.—AFP