Claims that prisoners being harassed at US “secret jail” in Afghanistan

KABUL - There have been repeated allegations from ex-detainees that prisoners are being abused at a “secret jail” at Bagram airbase, the main American military base in Afghanistan, according to a report from a US policy think tank.

According to the New York-based Open Society Foundations, 18 ex-detainees have complained that they were held at a secret site or the “black jail”, during 2009 and 2010 and added that they were deprived of sleep and held in cold isolation cells.

The inmates further alleged that that they were exposed to excessive cold and light, not given enough food or blankets, deprived of sleep, stripped naked for medical examinations and not allowed to practise their religion, the BBC reports.

“Given the consistency of the accounts, the Open Society Foundations believes these are genuine areas of concern, and not outliers, that run counter to US rules on detainee treatment,” the report said.

The author of the report, Jonathan Horowitz said: “We’re not talking about being threatened to death in interrogation with drills to their head, we’re talking about run-of-the-mill detention conditions that when seen as a whole create a very troubling pattern.”

The US military, however, have denied allegations that it was operating a secret jail and added that all its detention centres complied with US and international laws.

“The Department of Defence does not operate any secret prisons,” Captain Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for the US military task force overseeing detentions in Afghanistan, said. (ANI)