Ex-detainees claim Govt position used against Hicks

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Two British former Guantanamo Bay inmates say the US has used what they describe as the Federal Government's lack of support for Australian detainee David Hicks against him in interrogations involving torture. Rhuhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul have told reporters, at the world premiere of a British docudrama about their captivity, they were at one stage kept together with Hicks at Guantanamo Bay.

Launched at the Berlin Film Festival, The Road to Guantanamo shows harrowing scenes of the US torturing Mr Ahmed, Mr Rasul and their British friend Asif Iqbal until they comply. Mr Rasul says they spoke to Hicks several times at the US's detention facility in Cuba, where he says they were held for more than two years despite their innocence.

"He used to get interrogated a lot during the beginning and basically he was one of those people who they wanted to take to the commissions because from what I know, the British Government were doing something to get us out and the Australians weren't doing that much," he said. "And they were using that against him, telling him that the British were going to be going home and 'you're going to be staying here for the rest of your life'. He says Hicks was kept in solitary confinement for "a long time" during their more than two-year detention.

"When we left, he was in a place called Echo Block, which is complete solitary confinement - you don't get to see people and that's the last we heard of him," he said. "I met his lawyer last year and he's still being kept there. For a few weeks, he gets taken out and taken back to Camp Delta and then taken back to Camp Echo. "He got interrogated by the British as well, we know that, but we don't know what's happening with him now."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200602/s1570502.htm