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

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. Bensayah Belkacem in the CCR report can be found below.

(CCR36) Saber Lahmar and Belkacem Bensayah each were held in an isolation cell in Camp Five from August 2004 until mid October 2005. Both suffered visual deterioration and psychological trauma as a result (Center for Constitutional Rights 2006, 17).

(CCR37) Belkacem Bensayah lived under similar conditions [= under fluorescent lights twenty-four hours a day] for seventeen straight months and can no longer look at anything for long because he sees black spots (Center for Constitutional Rights 2006, 17).

(CCR38) When he first arrived at Guantánamo, Belkacem Bensayah was forced to get up and walk, and frequently moved from cell to cell during the night, at 30-minute intervals for a two-month period, which completely prevented him from sleeping (Center for Constitutional Rights 2006, 18).

Stephen Oleskey, Unclassified Attorney Notes Regarding Saber Lahmar (Dec. 2004, Oct. 2005)

Robert Kirsch & Stephen Oleskey, Unclassified Attorney Notes Regarding Belkacem Bensayah (Dec. 2004 and Oct. 2005, respectively)