Let the Beatings Commence!

Guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as common practice, a Marine sergeant said in a sworn statement obtained by The Associated Press.  The two-page statement was sent Wednesday to the Inspector General at the Department of Defense by a high-ranking Marine Corps defense lawyer.

The lawyer sent the statement on behalf of a paralegal who said men she met on Sept. 23 at a bar on the base identified themselves to her as guards. The woman, whose name was blacked out, said she spent about an hour talking with them. No one was in uniform, she said.

A 19-year-old sailor referred to only as Bo “told the other guards and me about him beating different detainees being held in the prison,” the statement said.

“One such story Bo told involved him taking a detainee by the head and hitting the detainee’s head into the cell door. Bo said that his actions were known by others,” the statement said. The sailor said he was never punished.

linkage – emphasis mine

Guantanamo detainee Abdul-Rahman Shabali described tubes bigger than his fingers forced into his nose until he passed out, a Navy doctor who inserted a tube with such violence that he started throwing up blood, and reuse of tubes that had been filled with blood and bile of others.

linkage