Guantanamo Briton 'witnessed deaths of detainees'

Begg, who has been detained for more than two years, insisted he was a law-abiding British citizen, that he had never met Osama bin Laden and was not a member of al-Qaida or any other paramilitary organisation.

Today’s revelation was the first time any communication from a serving Guantanamo detainee had been made public.

“During several interviews, particularly – though unexclusively – in Afghanistan, I was subjected to pernicious threats of torture, actual vindictive torture and death threats – amongst other coercively employed interrogation techniques,” said Begg.

“I state here, unequivocally and for the record, that any documents presented to me by US law enforcement agents were signed and initialled under duress, thus rendered legally contested in validity.”

He added: “The said interviews were conducted in an environment of generated fear, resonant with terrifying screams of fellow detainees facing similar methods.

“In this atmosphere of severe antipathy towards detainees was the compounded use of racially and religiously prejudiced taunts.

“This culminated, in my opinion, with the deaths of two fellow detainees at the hands of US military personnel, to which I myself was partially witness.”

Begg, 36, went on: “I am a law-abiding citizen of the UK and attest vehemently to my innocence before God and the law of any crime – though none has ever been alleged.

“I have neither ever met Osama Bin Laden, nor been a member of al Qaida – or any synonymous paramilitary organisation, party or group.

“Neither have I engaged in hostile acts against the USA, nor assisted such groups in the same – though the opportunity has availed itself many a time, and motive.

“Regardless of the outcome of all my appeals to sanity, and protestations over the years, I reiterate my intention to seek justice at every possible level available to me.”

The detainee claims that he had been abducted from Pakistan “under the auspices of US intelligence and law enforcement” and taken forcibly to Afghanistan in January 2002.

In his four-page letter he demanded “logical and reasonable answers” to a number of questions, including the reason for his alleged abduction, why he was taken into a designated war zone and physically abused.

In the letter, he claimed he had been “degradingly stripped by force, then paraded in front of several cameras toted by US personnel”.

He was held in Bagram airbase in Afghanistan for a year, during which time he was denied natural light and fresh food, he added.

Begg had been held in solitary confinement since February 8 2003 and was allowed few family letters, with even letters from his eight-year-old child being censored.

He asked: “What was the legality and purpose of extracting my signature on a statement in early February 2003 under threats of long-term imprisonment, summary trials and execution – all without legal representation?”

The letter, dated July 12 this year, was addressed to US Forces Administration at Guantanamo Bay and headed “to whom it may concern”.

Begg requested at the end of the letter that copies should be sent to the Home Secretary, the US Supreme Court, the European Court of Human Rights, Amnesty International, and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Begg’s US counsel Clive Stafford Smith said the document was written six weeks before his client was granted access to a lawyer.

He said he would file a legal demand on Monday to end the “inhumane treatment” immediately, and that the US publish detailed evidence of Begg’s torture.

Lawyers will also demand that the US declassify evidence of the two alleged killings described in the letter and that statements allegedly obtained by torture and duress will not be used to justify Beggs’ further detention.

They will also call on the British government to demand his immediate repatriation, added Mr Stafford Smith.

The New York Times reported last month that two detainees died at Bagram airbase within a week of each other in December 2002 but it was unclear whether these were the same two incidents described by his client, said the lawyer.

The detainee’s father Azmat Begg, 65, a former bank manager from Birmingham, said: “It is a very heartbreaking sort of letter.

“He must be a very brave boy, a very strong boy, because no ordinary man could cope with this.”

Five of the nine Britons originally detained at Guantanamo were released without charge in March.

Begg adds in his letter: “In spite of all the aforementioned cruel and unusual treatment meted out, I have maintained a compliant and amicable manner with my captors, and a co-operative attitude.

“My behavioural record is impeccable, yet contrasts immensely to what I have experienced.”