"Americans tortured me in Gitmo" - Aussie

"Mamdouh Habib still has a bruise on his lower back. He says it is a sign of the beatings he endured in a prison in Egypt. Interrogators there put out cigarettes on his chest, he says, and he lifts his shirt to show the marks. He says he got the dark spot on his forehead when Americans hit his head against the floor at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

"After being arrested in Pakistan in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, he was held as a terror suspect by the Americans for 40 months. Back home now, Mr. Habib alleges that at every step of his detention - from Pakistan, to Egypt, to Afghanistan, to Guantánamo - he endured physical and psychological abuse.

"The physical abuse, he said, ranged from a kick 'that nearly killed me' to electric shocks administered through a wired helmet that he said interrogators told him could detect whether he was lying ...

"Mr. Habib said any confessions he made were a result of torture and were not genuine.

"'Whatever they wanted me to sign,' he said, 'I signed to survive.'"
Source: New York Times

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"Freed Australian terror suspect Mamdouh Habib cried during a television interview while describing his torture and revealed he made a secret pact with fellow detainee David Hicks."
Source: The Herald-Sun

Photo: Regis Martin for The New York Times. "Mamdouh Habib, shown back in Australia with his wife, Maha, and two of their four children, Ahmed and Hajer, after his 40 months in custody."