Pentagon reveals Guantanamo names

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4771774.stm

The US defence department has released the names and nationalities of some of the inmates detained at its Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

However, the names do not appear as a simple list - they are buried within 6,000 pages of documents posted on the Pentagon's website.

They are transcripts of tribunals in which the 500 detainees were screened and their combat status assessed.

The transcripts have been released before, but with the names blacked out.

The files have been released as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Associated Press.

It is the first time most of the names have been made public.

'Ghost' detainees
Detainees were screened at the Combatant Status Review Tribunals with a view to categorising them as "enemy combatants".

The BBC's Pentagon correspondent, Adam Brookes, says it will take days, or even weeks, for the documents to be read and analysed, but soon much more will be learned not only about who the detainees are, but also the circumstances of their capture and detention.

However, our correspondent says that only inmates who underwent Combatant Status Review Tribunals have been named.

It is quite possible that there are other prisoners, known as "ghost" detainees, in Guantanamo, he adds.

Force feeding
In a separate development, a Kuwaiti man being held at Guantanamo Bay gave a rare interview to the BBC in which he described the force-feeding of hunger strikers at the camp, something which he says amounts to torture.

Answering the questions from the BBC's Today Programme through his lawyer, Fawzi al-Odah said hunger strikers were strapped to a chair and force-fed through a tube three times a day.

"First they took my comfort items away from me. You know, my blanket, my towel, my long pants, then my shoes. I was put in isolation for 10 days.

"They came in and read out an order. It said if you refuse to eat, we will put you on the chair [for force feeding]."

Mr Odah, who has been held at the base since 2002, was one of 84 inmates at Guantanamo who went on hunger strike in December. Just four are still refusing food.

He told how detainees were given "formulas" to force them to empty their bowels and were strapped to a metal chair three times a day, where a tube was inserted to administer food.

"One guy, a Saudi, told me that he had once been tortured in Saudi Arabia and that this metal chair treatment was worse than any torture he had ever endured or could imagine," Mr Odah said.

The UN Human Rights Commission said recently that it regarded force-feeding at Guantanamo as a form of torture, a charge the US firmly has repeatedly denied.