Russia on Saturday banned entry to 12 US soldiers and officials including the military commander at Guantanamo, accusing them of torture, in an apparent tit-for-tat response to new sanctions by Washington. Included on the list published by the Russian foreign ministry is a judge who denied a Guantanamo-based prisoner's request that he not be force-fed during Ramadan.
Also included are several soldiers who served at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad which was made notorious during the Iraq war by reports of abuse and torture of detainees. The measures prohibit those on the list from entering Russia. Russia had already published an initial "Guantanamo list" of 18 names last year in response to the adoption by the US Congress on "Magnitsky list", which imposed measures against 12 Russians with alleged ties to the 2009 death of human rights lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Russia on Thursday condemned what it called US "blackmail" after Washington imposed sanctions on its energy giants Rosneft and OA Novatek over Moscow's support for rebels in Ukraine.