Detainee's diary alleges physical abuse

Deghayes alleges maltreatment - including physical abuse and desecration of the Koran - by American guards. He claims to have had an eye gouged by prison guards in a savage attack which left him blind in one eye. Today, The Argus prints Mr Deghayes' harrowing testimony to his lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith of the daily indignities of life in Camp X-ray.

For almost four years, the United States has held hundreds of men without charge at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Many have now lost all hope, according to their lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith and a mass hunger strike is taking place in a last desperate attempt by prisoners to have their human rights restored.

Here, in an abridged version of notes written to his lawyer in the months leading up to June this year, Omar Deghayes describes the endless cycle of beatings, mental torture, humiliation and physical hardship that has led to such drastic action.

Some prisoners' names are in acronyms as they did not want Mr Deghayes to identify them.

"The cells in Camp V are concrete isolation cells. It is very difficult to hear or see anyone.

For one year, I have walked on the yard only once a week. That is when I am lucky, as sometimes we do not go out at all.

The yard itself is only twice as big as the cell. We are never under the sun, as the yard is covered.

We only go to the shower when we go to the yard, so if you don't get outside, you don't get to clean yourself.

The lights are some of the worst tools used against us.

They are neon, 2.5m long and glaring 24 hours a day.

They are fitted directly above the concrete tomb that is meant to be our bed.

Have you ever lived in bright lights for 24 hours a day, every day? It is a constant struggle to get any sleep at all. Many suffer mentally from sleep deprivation.

I have previously described to you the abuse I suffered from the ERF (Emergency Reaction Force) team when they gouged my eyes and left me permanently blind in my right eye.

While I can see nothing out of it, my eye is very sensitive to light.

It is particularly painful because they leave the bright lights on all the time.

I had an injury when I was a child to that eye. It is sad that after all the efforts my parents went to to save my sight, I have now been blinded forever.

The food is terrible. In June 2005, one evening at about 6pm, Hisham Sliti found a dead scorpion cooked in his dinner.

He had already eaten some of it, and he began to get a bad pain in his stomach, and then vomited.

They put very large noisy fans in every corridor, even though there is nobody in the corridors.

They make very disturbing noises and are left on all day and night, even the time for prayer.

Almost everyone develops headaches.

Scorpions walk around in Camp V. In June 2004, Juma was bitten by one in the cell in front of me.

There are frequent overflows and occasional blockages of the toilets.

The physical abuse is very bad. A prisoner called Farid was beaten by the ERF team and left naked for three weeks.

Farid is already lame because the guards in Kandahar broke his knee.

Saud Jihani, Issa Murbati and Hisham Sliti have also been particular victims. All three were beaten and left naked.

When Sliti returned from a lawyer visit in Camp Echo in May, four of the ERF team came into his cell, beat him, held him to the floor and then rifled through his Koran solely to offend him.

The abuse of the Koran continues in far worse ways than this as well. The acts have been so offensive that they do not bear mention here.

At the end of 2004, O refused to give back his paper plate as a minor protest over something. Five ERF members came in on him and three kneed him in the stomach until they had knocked him to the floor.

This ruptured his stomach and he suffered constant and increasing pain. He asked for medical care for several months.

Finally, on May 7 2005, he saw a doctor, who said his situation was very dangerous.

He had to undergo an operation as a result. He was kept at hospital for only two days, then returned to Camp V.

We have heard his screams of pain whenever he uses the toilet. The guards were laughing at him.

For more than a year now, MC (who Mr Stafford-Smith has informed The Argus was just 14 when first imprisoned in Guantanamo in 2002) has constantly been coming in for mistreatment.

MC had just moved cells when, at about 3am, the ERF team burst into his cell, pulled him off his bed and beat him.

They broke two of his teeth and he was bleeding.

They shackled him and took him on to the yard where they hosed him down before throwing him back on the floor of his cell.

MC had no idea what this was about. The next day, a translator came in and told him it had been a mistake and the ERF team had not realised that he had moved cell.

The previous occupant had committed some offence and was meant to be punished.

It is shameful they treat a kid this way.

SAL was brutally abused and had his back broken by the guards at the hospital. He is confined to a wheel-chair.

He cannot get any help with therapy when he is in solitary confinement.

He cannot stand unless he has someone to help him.

He is very afraid that he will become totally paralysed if he is not allowed to do physical therapy.

The plight of the people who have had limbs amputated is among the saddest of the conditions of this ugly camp.

I have twice been housed next to prisoners with prosthetic limbs.

The prisoners were effectively blackmailed by their interrogators who said that they had to co-operate in order to get their prosthetic devices back.

They are denied the toilet chairs, the sticks they need to walk and even the cream they need to ensure that the wound will not become infected and inflamed.

The pain is apparently particularly great when they are denied the necessary prosthetic socks so that the wounds are exposed to the extreme cold of the cells.

One, AA, has been trying to get a medical sock for seven months. He is in great pain.

We are dying a slow death in here. This suffering is continuous.

You have to remember that we have not been charged with any crime.

I do not understand what America is doing."

The Save Omar Deghayes campaign is holding a demonstration outside the Brighton Centre on the opening day of the Labour conference on Sunday, September 25, at 4pm.