Guantanamo Prisoner Presses Charges

Amidst a broader scandal about female interrogators using sexually suggestive tactics, a lawyer for Murat Kurnaz, a German-born Turk being held at Guantanamo, said his client was sexually humiliated by three scantily clad female interrogators. Bernhard Docke told the online version of Der Spiegel newsmagazine that his client was "sexually stimulated in a helpless position" by "three women in lacy bras and panties" at the prison. One of the women sat on his lap, while another rubbed her breasts against him. When he managed to push one of the women away, he was beaten by guards, Docke said. Detainees have previously complained of physical abuse and exposure to temperature extremes, but according to the Washington Post, Pentagon officials have insisted that terrorists are trained to make false torture allegations. The charges recall the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. Pentagon officials have said that being scantily clad or touching and chatting with prisoners in a suggestive manner are inappropriate interrogation methods. "I don't see that as being authorized by the secretary of defense's approved interrogation techniques for Guantanamo," Colonel David McWilliams, a spokesman for the Miami-based US Southern Command, told the Post. He also said it was too early to comment on the allegations, as a military investigation of Guantanamo -- launched in January, after a group of FBI agents said they witnessed abuse -- was still under way.