Sex abuse at Hicks prison camp

Exclusive by Stephanie Balogh in New York
February 07, 2007 12:00

A US military officer claims to have witnessed a guard sexually abusing a terror suspect at the same Afghanistan processing camp where Australian David Hicks was taken after his capture.

In a two page statement, seen by The Daily Telegraph Online, the unnamed officer says they saw one of the MPs at the joint interrogation facility “perform the anal probe instead of the medical person’’.

“He pushed both his fingers into the EPW’s (enemy prisoner of war) anus. This caused the EPW to scream and fall to the ground violently," the source wrote.

“His leg irons which, I suppose, were not locked, came open by the force of his reaction."

The statement was sworn in February 2002 in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Hicks spent time in the joint interrogation facility before he was moved to the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In October 2005, his father Terry Hicks told ABC’s Four Corners that his son had told him he had been physically and sexually assaulted.

But two separate US military inquires into allegations of abuse committed by US personnel found no evidence to substantiate the claims. Australia is yet to conduct its own inquiry.

Speaking from Adelaide this morning, Mr Hicks said the claims in the officer’s sworn statement were “very similar to what David told us’’.

“We put it out there early about what had happened but we got howled down. Now when you read that out it tells me what David has told us was correct.

“I think it’s about time our government and the American government woke up to themselves and instead of hiding things, just got it out there,’’ Mr Hicks said.

“If it was a doctor who was doing it I guess that is part of their checking them out but when it is someone else doing it, well that becomes a torture process."

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