British troops recount human rights abuses at US detention facility in Iraq
British soldiers and airmen tell of prisoners brought in by SAS and SBS snatch squads being hooded and given electric shocks
An aerial view of Baghdad international airport, where the secret prison known as Camp Nama was based. Photograph: Reuters
Ian Cobain
The Guardian, Monday 1 April 2013 13.03 EDT
British soldiers and air personnel who helped to operate a secretive US detention facility in Baghdad that was at the centre of some of the most serious human-rights abuses to occur in Iraq after the invasion have, for the first time, spoken about abuses they witnessed there.
Members of two RAF squadrons and one Army Air Corps squadron were given guard and transport duties at the secret prison, the Guardian has established. Many of the detainees were brought to the facility by snatch squads formed from Special Air Service and Special Boat Service squadrons. The abuses the soldiers and airmen say they saw included:
•?Iraqi prisoners being held for prolonged periods in cells the size of large dog kennels.
•?Prisoners being subjected to electric shocks.
•?Prisoners being routinely hooded.
•?Inmates being taken into a sound-proofed shipping container for interrogation, and emerging in a state of physical distress.
Codenamed Task Force 121, the joint US-UK special forces unit was at first deployed to detain individuals thought to have information about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/01/british-troops-witness-us-torture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Nama
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