MANAMA, 7 August 2004 — Bahrain said yesterday it would formally ask its close ally the United States to investigate allegations US troops tortured a Bahraini detainee at Guantanamo Bay.
Foreign Ministry official Youssef Mahmoud told the Bahrain News Agency his ministry had asked its embassy in Washington to query US officials about the condition of Juma Al-Dossary after a report by the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR).
The BCHR report, quoting three Britons recently freed from the US naval base in Cuba, said Al-Dossary was repeatedly beaten by US soldiers, who slammed his face into the floor and broke his nose.
The Britons, young Muslims who were detained in Afghanistan in 2002, were the latest released detainees to allege abuse. “The Bahrain Embassy in Washington has been instructed ... to send an official memorandum to the US secretary of state to inquire about the reports ... on torturing a Bahraini national at the Guantanamo prison,” Mahmoud told the agency. Dossary is believed to be mentally ill.
There are six Bahrainis, including Dossary, held in Guantanamo for more than two years without trial. A group of international lawyers visited Bahrain, the headquarters for US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, last month as part of a trip that took them to other Arab countries to prepare a lawsuit on behalf of the Guantanamo prisoners. The inmates in Guantanamo are suspected of fighting with the Taleban in Afghanistan or supporting Al-Qaeda. The United States has denied allegations that prisoners were beaten and abused.
