Interview

CAIRO: An Egyptian man released this month from U.S. detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has said the "torture" he suffered in the military camp left him a cripple in a wheelchair. "They used to grab me by the arms and then hurl me on the floor, on my back. They took pleasure in torturing us," Sami al-Leithy, 49, told Egyptian television on Sunday night.

"I have suffered a fracture in my backbone because of this," he said as he sat in a wheelchair wearing a beige djellabah robe.

Leithy was held four years in the U.S.-run jail at Guantanamo before his release and handover to the Egyptian authorities in early October.

"Before my detention I used to play football and I was in good health," he said, showing medical certificates attesting to his present condition.

Leithy charged that his interrogators "used to point a harsh light at us during questioning and would beat anyone who tried to close his eyes."

"They would ask our opinion on U.S. policies and would hit violently those who were against it or push their heads down on the floor with their boots," he added.

But Leithy said he was never witness to alleged reports that guards at  Guantanamo desecrated the Koran, saying he "rarely left his cell."

According to him, cells in Guantanamo are categorized "A" to "D," with the best ones given to those who cooperated with the authorities.

Prisoners held in "A" cells "had three meals a day, two blankets, a toothbrush, toothpaste and soap. These perks diminished until they disappeared in the worst cells, the 'D,'" he said.

Leithy recalled how he left Egypt at the age of 19 to study in Pakistan, where his brother-in-law, a professor at the Al-Azhar Islamic University, was teaching.

He graduated in 1986 from the University of Islamabad and worked for 10 years in Pakistan. Unable to renew his passport at the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan he headed for Kabul to seek a new one.

He taught at the University of Kabul and was wounded in U.S. bombardment of the city in 2001. He was hospitalized in the border town of Khosht and tried to escape when the city also came under U.S. attack but was arrested by the Pakistani Army and handed over to the Americans who in turn took him to Guantanamo.

"In 2004 I was finally brought before a U.S. military court ... During the hearing, they refused to remove the shackles I had on my wrists and my feet and told me I was arrested with 15 other Arabs for having considered to fight the American Army." he said. In May he was told he was innocent but kept in detention until his release in October. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Gheit said that four Egyptians are still held in Guantanamo. - AFP