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`Guantanamo prisoners too faced abuse'

WASHINGTON, MAY 9. Amid the raging controversy over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, a new report has said the U.S. Government last year approved interrogation techniques for use at its detention facility in Guantanamo Bay that permitted disrobing detenus, reversing sleep patterns and exposing prisoners to heat, cold and ``sensory assault.'' Though Guantanamo prisoners were treated better than those in Abu Ghraib in Iraq, they too were subjected to severe stress to make them talk.

A classified list of about 20 techniques was approved at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the Justice Department in April 2003 and represents the first publicly known documentations of an official policy permitting interrogators to use physically and psychologically stressful methods during questioning, The Washington Post reported quoting unnamed defence officials.

The use of any of these techniques required the approval of senior Pentagon officials — and in some cases, of the Defence Secretary. Interrogators must justify that the harshest treatment is ``militarily necessary,'' according to the document, as cited by one official. Once approved, the harsher treatment must be accompanied by ``appropriate medical monitoring.

``We wanted to find a legal way to jack up the pressure,'' said one lawyer who helped write the guidelines.

PTI

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