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Report on Torture, Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. (Qahtani)

In July 2006, The New York Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) published its Report on Torture, Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. This report is based on accounts drawn directly from habeas counsels’ unclassified notes reflecting prisoner statements made to counsel during in-person interviews conducted at Guantánamo beginning in the Fall of 2004. Some information for that report was taken also from public sources compiled in Cecili Thompson Williams & Kristine A. Huskey, Detention, Interrogation, and Torture at Guantánamo Bay: Materials and Case Files, a report published by the law firm of Shearman and Sterling LLP in October 2005. The testimony by or about Mr. Muhammad Mani Ahmed Al Shal Lan Al Qahtani in the CCR report can be found below.

(CCR29) Perhaps one of the most severe examples of sleep deprivation is that of Mohammed Al-Qahtani who, pursuant to a special “interrogation plan” approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was subjected to fifty days of sleep deprivation. Except for one day during this period, Mr. Al-Qahtani was permitted to sleep no more than four hours a day between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Medical personnel monitored Mohammed al Qahtani’s interrogation during a period of nearly two months of severe sleep deprivation and physical stress. At one point, they rushed him to the base hospital when his heart rate dropped dangerously low. After stabilizing him, they returned him for further interrogation the following day. Other prisoners who report experiencing sleep deprivation include Mr. Hicks, Mr. Abbasi, Mr. Habib, Mr. Esmail, and Mr. Abd al-Malik al-Wahab (Center for Constitutional Rights 2006, 22f).