My torture hell in Camp Delta cage

A British man detained at Guantanamo Bay today told for the first time how he was beaten, sprayed with pepper guns and forced to stand naked while soldiers videotaped his humiliation.

Tarek Dergoul, 26, revealed the full extent of his ordeal in the American prison camp in a sworn statement which lists a catalogue of abuses. They include how he was:

Worse still, Mr Dergoul, from Mile End, who was released in March, claimed that, on five separate occasions, he complained of his ill treatment to British MI5 officers brought in to interrogate him. No action was taken.

The revelations came ahead of the expected release tomorrow of another damning report on the abuse inflicted on three other British inmates held in the American base on suspicion of aiding al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Leading human rights lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith will reveal how Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed all suffered abuse organised by US military chiefs who went on to control Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

The report, which is being produced by human rights lawyers to bring fresh pressure on the Government and the US to close Guantanamo, will call for America to release - and Britain to view - so-called "video nasty" films of prisoners being maltreated.

Today Mr Dergoul's lawyer, Louise Christian, said the "shocking detail" of her client's claims confirmed the similarity of the regime at Camp Delta with that of Abu Ghraib. She said: "The picture which emerges from Tarek Dergoul's signed witness statement is one of a systematic regime of abuses directed and ordered by the top command and aimed at forcing detainees to make false statements in interrogations. "It is essential that the British government actually sees these videos and does not just rely on what the US government tells them is in it."

Foreign Office Minister Baroness Symons claimed that the abuse allegations were not raised with British officials on any of the visits to the prisoners during their stay.

Mr Dergoul, the son of a Moroccan baker and a former care worker for the elderly, tells how he went to Afghanistan looking to buy property, only to be picked up by American forces after the Taliban were routed. He goes on to detail exactly how he was treated during his 22-month stay in prison without charge.

Tarek's story

'After a week they gave me a wrist band and put me on Hotel Block, cage number 15. The cages were made of corrugated iron with a mesh window at the back and the front.

You could hear the guys in the other block talking, but you were not allowed to "cross-block talk". If you did, you were put on punishment. After about five days, I was put on punishment for this. They came and took everything out of my cell and left me "on the metal" with nothing at all. I was freezing and it was very cold. I had no blanket or bed mat and only a metal bed.

After only two days, I got caught crossblock talking again. They took me into the isolation block. I was kept there for a week. The conditions there were absolutely freezing, with cold air blowing in from air conditioning units 24 hours a day, which they turned up.

During my time in Guantanamo Bay, I did about a year and three months in the isolation block. I was sent there for various reasons. One was that I would refuse to give them back the food after they did not give me enough time to eat it. They would give you food and then try to collect it five minutes later. I was also punished for translating for other people who were complaining from Arabic to English. There were also a lot of protests about the air conditioning and guards disrespecting the Koran.

They threatened to send me to Morocco and Egypt, where I would be tortured. They played US music very loud during interrogations. They brought pictures of naked women and dirty magazines and put them on the floor.

One interrogator grabbed the Koran with his feet up on the table and read it like he was reading a magazine. He made jokes about the Koran.

In later interrogations, I was kept in the interrogation room, chained to a ring in the floor, for at least six, and sometimes as long as 10, hours, with no access to sanitary facilities. The interrogators left the room for hours at a time. I had to go to the toilet on the ground while the guards made jokes. During interrogation, if you moved from a sitting position or closed your eyes, they would take the chair away and make you bend your legs. They would then tighten the chain so there was no slack and you couldn't bend left or right. I would get cramp and start screaming. The guards would swear at Muslims and curse Allah and the prophet Mohammed. In interrogation sessions they used either the air conditioning unit or sometimes extreme heat to make you uncomfortable.

There was a microphone in Camp Delta which was supposed to be used for the call to prayer. However, the military abuses directed and ordered by the top command and aimed at forcing detainees to make false statements in interrogations.

"It is essential that the British government actually sees these videos and does not just rely on what the US government tells them is in it."

Foreign Office Minister Baroness Symons claimed that the abuse allegations were not raised with British officials on any of the visits to the prisoners during their stay.

Mr Dergoul, the son of a Moroccan baker and a former care worker for the elderly, tells how he went to Afghanistan looking to buy property, only to be picked up by American forces after the Taliban were routed. He goes on to detail exactly how he was treated during his 22-month stay in prison without charge. police or guards would mess around with it. They would make it play five times, or sometimes they would not play it. They played it at the wrong time, at other times they spoke over the tannoy and mocked it with their own voices, saying, "Allah Akbar". Sometimes they would not play it for a week.

The military police deliberately chose the time when they knew we would be praying to come up and down banging on the cage doors, saying, "Allah Akbar", and then insist on doing cell searches when we were praying. The guards deliberately felt up my private parts under the guise of searching me.

If I refused a cell search, military police would call the Extreme Reaction Force, who came in riot gear with plastic shields and pepper spray. The ERF entered the cell, ran in and pinned me down after spraying me and attacked me. The pepper spray caused me to vomit on several occasions. They poked their fingers in my eyes, banged my head on the floor and kicked and punched me and tied me up like a beast. They often forced my head into the toilet.

When the ERF were called, they were always accompanied by someone with a video camera. In Camp Echo (where Feroz Abbasi is being kept), they have buckets for waste and are kept in total isolation. Every person has a guard to themselves and they cannot speak. They are not allowed a Koran.

In about mid-June 2002, they came and said they wanted to take me to the clinic. I said I didn't want to go to the clinic. The guards put me on the floor and jumped on me, I was on my front and they pushed down with their knee in my back and their foot on my neck. The ERF came in. They put me on a stretcher and chained me in the hogtie position.

They came to do a search of the whole camp in Ramadan 2002. They deliberately put my finger toothbrush on the Koran. I tried to tell them to take it off because it was disrespectful. They poked their fingers in the spot below my right eye and put their hands on my face. They put me on the floor and jumped on me. I was knocked out and lost consciousness as a result of being beaten.

When I woke up, there were voices and it was dark. I was on the floor in the same cage with my head against the toilet. Eventually they stood me up against the door, took the cuffs off me and took away all my things once again.

There were several hunger strikes which were all about guards being disrespectful to the Koran. I took part in about four hunger strikes. One started in December 2002 and went on for about six weeks. People were fainting left, right and centre. I felt very weak and ill and could only do a hunger strike for three days at a time.

When I left, there was a non cooperation protest in the whole camp because the detainees in Romeo Block were being required to wear only shorts and were not allowed to cover themselves for prayer.

Before I got on to the airplane to fly back to Britain, I was asked to sign a form to say we were being released on the basis that we agreed we were al Qaeda and Taliban and had been detained on the battlefield. I refused to sign it, even though I was warned that might mean I would not be released.

I am now living in temporary bed and breakfast homeless accommodation and have still not received any income support. I am suffering from nightmares and flashbacks, I get migraines, I am depressed and suffer from memory loss.

I believe the contents of this witness statement to be true.