Ex Guantanamo detainee Naji Abdelaziz: “Been to Hell and back”

El Khabar
July 28, 2010

Prisoner n°744, Abdelaziz Naji, has recently been released from Guantanamo detention camp. Arrived on Monday to his neighbourhood in Batna province, Abdelaziz tells the suffering he endured there under the pretext of allegedly international terrorism charges.

Naji says the world has to know the truth about abuses against humanity committed by US soldiers in the Guantanamo detention camp. “They force detainees to take some medicines for three months to drive them crazy, loosing memory and committing suicide,” he said, adding: “I still remember how a Yemeni prisoner killed himself for he couldn’t resist to torture and sexual abuse practiced by the prison caretakers”.

Abdelaziz was arrested in Pakistan with another Algerian, Mustapha Hamlili, who had lived there for 15 years with his Afghan wife. Abdelaziz had been taken to Baghram military base in Afghanistan, for cross-examinations and torture, before flying to Guantanamo.

Abdelaziz pursues and says that in Guantanamo, prisoners suffered different kind of torture to force them confessing terror charges stuck to them.

He further revealed that the Red Cross members who visited the camp avoided evoking the bad treatment of the soldiers against the prisoners, and “the majority of detainees accused the Red Cross of collusion with the US soldiers,” he assumed.

Abdelaziz talked also, about how some detainees had been promised to be granted political asylum opportunity in exchange of a “spying role” within the detention camp. He added that once released, they are maintained as spies serving for the US, under the cover of political refugees. Abdelaziz had mentioned the name of an Algerian originated ex Guanatanamo prisoner, alias “Bavardad” who was forced to become a spy within a mosque in a European country, because he was told in case he returns to Algeria, Intelligence services would consider him a traitor and would kill him. He concluded, however, that once he returned to the country, he had been well treated by Algerian security services.

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