SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico | A Guantanamo Bay prisoner gave an unprecedented interview to a Middle East television network during his weekly call to his family, telling Al Jazeera he was beaten by guards for refusing to leave his cell.
It was the first time a Guantanamo prisoner has given a news media interview, though many have spoken to the media after their release.
Mohammed el Gharani, a native of Chad, claimed he was severely beaten by guards for refusing to leave his cell, the network reported on its Web site. He spoke with journalist Sami al-Haj, who previously was imprisoned for six years at Guantanamo. The Sudan native was released from Guantanamo in May.
The military does not allow interviews with Guantanamo prisoners, saying to do so would violate the Geneva Conventions.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brook DeWalt, a prison spokesman, said he had no evidence to support el Gharani’s claims of abuse, but the U.S. is investigating the phone call.
El Gharani, who has been ordered released by a U.S. judge, is one of relatively few prisoners with special privileges such as weekly phone calls.
The calls are taped and authorities ensure that the numbers called are those of a family member, but the U.S. has little control over what happens at the other end, Cmdr. DeWalt said.
“We can’t sit there and have a monitor on the other end of the line where the phone is to see who the phone is passed to,” he said.
The prison spokesman said officials have not revoked the man’s permission to make the weekly phone calls.
El Gharani, who is in his early 20s, told Al Jazeera that guards beat him with batons and sprayed him with tear gas. He said the purported abuse occurred after the November election of President Obama, who took office in January and has ordered Guantanamo closed by the end of the year.
The prisoner said he refused to leave his cell because he was not being permitted to interact with other detainees and was denied “normal food.” He said a group of six soldiers in protective gear removed him from the cell and beat him, breaking one of his front teeth.
Cmdr. DeWalt said he has no evidence to support the allegations.
El Gharani is one of about 20 prisoners held in Camp Iguana, where prisoners have been approved for release and are awaiting transfer to another country. They live communally, instead of in the solid-walled cells used elsewhere in the prison, and have access to additional food and entertainment not permitted to the rest of the prison population.
The prisoner’s description of being forcibly removed from a cell and prevented from interacting with other prisoners suggests that the purported incident occurred before he was put in Iguana. Cmdr. Dewalt said el Gharani has been in the camp for “a couple of months.”
A U.S. judge in January ordered el Gharani released. He was arrested in Pakistan in 2001 at a mosque by local police and turned over to U.S. forces in 2002.
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