WASHINGTON, July 13: Guantanamo Bay interrogators degraded and abused a key prisoner but did not torture him when they told him he was gay, forced him to dance with another man and made him wear a bra and perform dog tricks, US military investigators said on Wednesday.

The general who heads US Southern Command, responsible for the jail for foreign terrorism suspects at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also said he declined to heed his investigators’ recommendation to punish a former commander of the prison camp.

A military report presented before the Senate Armed Services Committee stated the Saudi man, described as the ‘20th hijacker’ slated to have participated in the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, was forced by interrogators to wear a bra.

Interrogators also told him he was a homosexual, forced him to dance with a male interrogator, forced him to wear a leash and perform dog tricks, menaced him with a dog and subjected him to interrogation up to 20 hours a day for about two months, the report said.

Air Force Lt Gen Randall Schmidt, who headed the probe into FBI accounts of abuse of Guantanamo prisoners by Defence Department personnel, concluded that the man was subjected to ‘abusive and degrading treatment’ due to ‘the cumulative effect of creative, persistent and lengthy interrogations’. The techniques used were authorized by the Pentagon, he said.

“As the bottom line, though, we found no torture. Detention and interrogation operations were safe, secure and humane,” Gen Schmidt said of the prison.

But Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain noted: “Humane treatment might be in the eye of the beholder.”

Army Gen Bantz Craddock, who as head of Southern Command oversees Guantanamo, said he rejected the recommendation by Gen Schmidt.—Reuters