War on terror suspects held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suffered "highly abusive" treatment during interrogations, The New York Times reported Sunday, citing military guards, intelligence agents and other sources.
The Times said sources described a range of procedures that included "highly abusive (treatment) occurring over a long period of time."
In one common procedure, uncooperative prisoners were stripped down to their underwear, made to sit in a chair with their hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor, and forced to listen to blaring rock and rap music in a room with flashing strobe lights, a military official told the Times.
At the same time, the room was cooled down with the air-conditioning turned to maximum levels, since the detainees were used to high temperatures from their native countries and their prison cells in the Caribbean island, said the official who witnessed the procedure.
"It fried them," the official told the Times, adding that the sessions could last up to 14 hours with breaks.
Most of the some 540 suspected al Qaeda and Taleban fighters held in Guantanamo were rounded up in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, attacks.
An intelligence official told the national daily newspaper that most of the intense interrogation tactics were focused on a group called the "Dirty 30" who were believed to be the best potential sources of information.
In August, a report commissioned by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld found that tough interrogation techniques approved by the government were rarely used, the newspaper said. But the tactics used in Guantanamo went beyond what was permissible, sources told the Times.
While uncooperative prisoners were harshly treated, those who co-operated were rewarded with access to a room dubbed "the love shack" in which they could read magazines, watch television and eat hamburgers from the base's McDonald's restaurant, the newspaper said.