QUOTH THE RAVING :

US terror suspect 'beaten in custody' (Emma Simpson, 24 August, 2002, BBC)

For the first eight months Mr al-Marabh was held in a special unit at New York's Metropolitan Detention Centre, along with, he said, 40 other detainees.

Speaking from custody elsewhere in the state, he told me he was held in isolation and went on hunger strike in protest against his confinement in a tiny cell.

"It was like nothing worse than hell and I did five times hunger strikes, asking for a lawyer, for a judge," said Mr al-Marabh.

He says that he was punished for his hunger strikes, forced to sleep on a urine soaked mattress for 10 days, without enough water to wash himself.

He also alleged that he was beaten twice.

The first incident, he said, was last November.

"On 7 November they beat me, they hid everything and then they refused to take any notes, they crack my finger and they beat my head.

"It's been too hard, I've been taking medication. My brain is not functioning any more, I forget a lot and I get shocks at night because they used to bang the door and they never let us sleep."

So he's been on medication, can't remember things, and his brain isn't functioning anymore, but the BBC quotes him in its headline? Posted by Orrin Judd at August 24, 2002 9:54 AM