WASHINGTON, Dec 11: A US senator has urged Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to promptly open a probe into allegations that evidence of prisoner abuse by the US military has been suppressed , a US civil liberties group said on Friday.
Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico expressed "deep concern" over the treatment of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"Recent reports indicate that not only were detainees mishandled and interrogated in a manner inconsistent with the Geneva Conventions, but that subsequent internal reports of abuse appear to have been suppressed," he wrote to Mr Rumsfeld in the letter released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Senator Bingaman cited a Defence Intelligence Agency memo, obtained by the ACLU and released this week, accusing members of a special operations task force in Iraq of punching a prisoner in the face and then confiscating photos of the injuries taken by a DIA interrogator.
"While the abuse of detainees is unacceptable under any circumstance, reports of the suppression of evidence regarding abuse are extremely disturbing," he wrote in the letter.
"It is for this reason that I urge you to expeditiously investigate the allegations of suppression and take immediate action to make public all documents related to cases of detainee abuse not critical to national security," he wrote.
The ACLU commended the senator's letter.
"What is most disconcerting is that this is probably only the tip of the iceberg," ACLU legislative office director Laura Murphy said in a statement.
"Sadly, the government has tried to hide these abuses behind a could of secrecy," she said. "That cloud must be lifted so that the country can get to the bottom of this."
BRITON'S ALLEGATION: A Briton held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, claims he was subjected to abuse and humiliation, echoing torture accounts from other British nationals held there, the Guardian reported on Saturday.
Martin Mubanga claimed he was kept shackled for long periods, that an interrogator stood on his hair and that he was subjected to extreme temperatures, according to the newspaper.
Mr Mubanga, a 31-year-old from London, was quoted in a Foreign Office document prepared for his family, following a British official's visit to the detention centre in early October.
The official said that during the hour-long visit, Mr Mubanga was kept "shackled to the ring in the floor", according to the document.
The detainee, arrested in Zambia, has been held for more than two years in the US detention centre. Most of the 550 detainees there are accused of having links with Taliban and Al Qaeda militants rounded up during military operations in Afghanistan.
Another British detainee, Moazzam Begg, a 36-year-old arrested in 2002 in Pakistan, claimed in October he was subjected to "vindictive torture" and death threats, and that he had witnessed the death of two fellow detainees "at the hands of US military personnel".
Four of five Britons released from Guantanamo last March have filed a lawsuit in Washington seeking damages from US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials for alleged torture and abuse.
The Foreign Office said it had raised Mr Mubanga's allegations with US authorities and that "their response is that they are without merit", the Guardian quoted a spokeswoman as saying.
"At this stage we would not propose to pursue this further," she said. -AFP
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