Guantanamo treatment 'inhumane'

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A UK resident held in solitary confinement at Guantanamo Bay has had his rights under the Geneva convention violated, his lawyers have said.

According to a motion filed in the US, Saudi citizen Shaker Aamer, 39, has been beaten, sleep deprived and subjected to temperature extremes.

He has been treated inhumanely and must be removed from isolation, Mr Aamer's lawyers said.

A US military spokesman told AP news agency he was not being mistreated.

According to the motion, Mr Aamer has been kept in isolation since 24 September last year and lives in a 6ft by 8ft (1.8m by 2.4m) cell containing a steel bunk and toilet, a Koran and an inch-thin mattress.

He has reported that his only consistent contact with living beings apart from his captors are the ants in his cell, who he feeds and considers his friends, lawyer Zachary Katznelson said in a statement filed with the court.

On 9 June this year, Mr Aamer was beaten by military police for refusing to provide a retina scan and fingerprints, Mr Katznelson added.

He said: "They choked him. They bent his nose repeatedly so hard to the side he thought it would break.

"They gouged his eyes. They bent his fingers until he screamed.

"This whole time the officer in charge of the camp was outside the cell but did not intervene."

Geneva Convention

The motion stated that Mr Aamer was fluent in English and was respected by the other prisoners.

It said his treatment violated Article Three of the Geneva Convention - which says prisoners shall be treated humanely.

Guantanamo spokesman Capt Dan Byer told AP news agency the treatment of all detainees at the camp in Cuba conformed with the Geneva Convention and none was denied human contact 24 hours a day.

But he declined to discuss whether Mr Aamer had been kept apart from other detainees for a year.

Mr Aamer had been living in the UK since 1996, where he is thought to have lived in London with his wife and children.

He had been applying for citizenship and had indefinite leave to stay in the UK when he was captured in Afghanistan after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US.

He says he had travelled to Afghanistan to carry out charity work.