Guantánamo Bay: Inside the Empty, Rotting ‘Torture’ Blocks of Camp X-Ray
11th June 2012
The notorious Sean Rayment overheats his cliche machine.
I am standing inside one of the dilapidated interrogation huts in Camp X-Ray, one of the most notorious prisons in history.
It’s hot, dark, airless and smells of rotting wood. The floor is uneven and my guide, a US soldier, warns me that there may be snakes.
I walk gingerly to the centre of the room where a wooden table is bolted to the floor. The hut is divided into two rooms, each the mirror image of the other.
There are no windows, just space for an air-conditioning unit; the ceilings and walls have been soundproofed.
It is in these rooms that men picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan were allegedly tortured: threatened with snarling dogs and, some detainees claim, subjected to simulated drowning – a process now, notoriously, known as water boarding.
I don’t suppose the poor boy has ever had an original thought in his life.