The Canadian Press

Records show Guantanamo prisoner hurt by sleep deprivation, lawyer says

Fri Jul 11, 9:13 PM

By Mike Melia, The Associated Press

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - An Afghan prisoner suffered significant weight loss and other health problems when the military subjected him to two weeks of sleep deprivation at Guantanamo Bay in 2004, his lawyer said Friday.

The claim comes only days after documents were released indicating Canadian officials knew in 2004 that Canadian teen Omar Khadr was being deprived of sleep for weeks to soften him up for interrogation at the U.S. prison on an American base in Cuba.

Mohammed Jawad lost 10 per cent of his body weight and told doctors he was urinating blood after guards subjected him to the sleep deprivation program, said air force Maj. David Frakt, his Pentagon-appointed lawyer, citing prison records.

The records, Frakt said, contradict military claims that Jawad suffered no ill effects from what the military called its "frequent flyer" sleep deprivation program.

"It provides substantiation there was not just mental suffering but there were medical side effects," Frakt told The Associated Press.

Jawad is charged with attempted murder for throwing a grenade that wounded two U.S. soldiers and their translator in Afghanistan in December 2002. The lawyer had previously filed a motion asking a military judge to dismiss the charges because of the treatment, which he has labelled torture.

On Friday, he said he filed an additional motion for dismissal because prosecutors failed to provide records of the health effects before a hearing on the issue last month.

U.S. military prosecutors have acknowledged that guards kept Jawad awake by repeatedly moving him from cell to cell over two weeks in May 2004. But they say the treatment did not amount to torture and have urged the judge not to dismiss the charges.

A Pentagon spokesman, navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, declined Friday to comment on Frakt's allegations.

In a separate motion, Frakt argues for a dismissal on the grounds a senior Pentagon legal official may have misled the court in his testimony last month.

The lawyer said air force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann was deliberately evasive when testifying at a hearing called to determine whether he had used what the military calls improper "command influence" to push for criminal charges to be filed against Jawad. A ruling is pending on the issue.

A spokesman for the general said Hartmann stands by his testimony and declined further comment.

In the Khadr case, documents indicate that Canadian officials knew in 2004 he was being deprived of sleep to soften him up for interrogation.

The Department of Foreign Affairs reports say Canadian official Jim Gould visited the Toronto-born Khadr at Guantanamo Bay and was told by the military that measures were taken to make the then-17-year-old more pliable for interviews.

The documents, released by Khadr's lawyers Wednesday and ordered to be released by a Canadian judge last month, are marked secret. Some parts are blacked out.

One report - written by Scott Heatherington, director of foreign intelligence for Foreign Affairs - said Khadr was to be placed in isolation for up to three weeks and then interviewed again.

Khadr is scheduled to face trial in October for allegedly lobbing a grenade that killed a U.S. special forces soldier following a firefight in Afghanistan.

Khadr's Canadian lawyers say they will release a video to the media Monday or Tuesday of their client being interrogated by Canadian officials, and that it backs up claims of mistreatment.

"The video does not show Mr. Khadr being tortured, but it shows him crying as he describes being tortured and shows him showing Canadian officials physical evidence of his abuse and pleading for their help," said lawyer Dennis Edney.

"The Canadian and U.S. governments can no longer hide from these allegations."

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