Gitmo worse since Obama election, says ex-detainee

LONDON (AFP) - A freed Guantanamo Bay prisoner has said conditions at the US detention camp in Cuba have worsened since President Barack Obama was elected, claiming guards wanted to "take their last revenge." Binyam Muhammad, who became the first detainee to be transferred out of Guantanamo since Obama took office, also said British agents "sold me out" by cooperating with his alleged torturers, in his first interview since being released to be published Sunday. Binyamin gave further details of what he called the "medieval" torture he faced in Pakistan and Morocco, as well as in a secret CIA prison in Kabul and at Guantanamo."The result of my experience is that I feel emotionally dead," he told the Mail on Sunday newspaper. "It seems like a miracle my brain is still intact." Far from conditions at Guantanamo improving since Obama was elected in November, Binyamin said the situation there was worse now than before. The US president had promised during his campaign to shut down the Guantanamo prison and two days after taking office announced it would close this year."Since the election it's got harsher," he told the newspaper. "The guards would say, 'yes, this place is going to close down,' but it was like they wanted to take their last revenge." He also claimed the feared Emergency Reaction Force at Guantanamo, a team which he said punishes inmates in their cells and once almost gouged his eyes out when he declined to give his fingerprints, is now being used more often. Binyamin said he was beaten at Guantanamo and also described mistreatment at other detention centres. He said his chest and male organ were slashed with razors while he was held in Morocco. In Afghanistan he lived in constant darkness and "came close to insanity" after being forced to listen to the same album by rapper Eminem at top volume for a solid month. In the newspaper interview, Binyamin gave further details of his claim that British officials had colluded in his alleged torture. He said that while he was in Morocco in 2002, his Moroccan interrogators "started bringing British files to the interrogations... it was obvious the British were feeding them questions about people in London. "When I realised that the British were cooperating with the people torturing me, I felt completely naked," he said. "They sold me out." He said he subsequently made false confessions about a plot to build a "dirty" nuclear bomb and one to blow up apartments in New York linked to alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh. The Mail on Sunday also quoted a November 2002 telegram from Britain's MI5 security service to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) detailing questions that they wanted to be put to Binyamin. Looking to the future, Binyamin is undergoing therapy to come to terms with his experiences. He said he wanted to stay in Britain, which is currently considering whether to let him remain, despite his allegations against its officials. "It's the only place I can call home," he said. "I want to live a normal life, to find a wife, get married, have a family, a job. "Meanwhile, I'll do whatever I can to get the other innocent prisoners out of Guantanamo."

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