"What they are doing clearly comes within the definition of torture under the international convention," Bourke

CANBERRA, Australia, October 8 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Threatening to take the case to international tribunals, an Australian lawyer accused the United States of using "old-fashioned" torture techniques to force confessions out of prisoners at the Guantanamo military camp.

"They are engaging in good old-fashioned torture, as people would have understood it in the Dark Ages," said Richard Bourke, a U.S.-based Australian lawyer who has been reprsenting for almost two years dozens of detainees at Camp X-ray at Guantanamo Bay.

"People sometimes argue about the definition of torture, what they are doing clearly comes within the definition of torture under the international convention, but they are engaging in what amounts to torture in the medieval sense of the phrase," Bourke told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio (ABC).

He said reports of torture are being leaked by American military personnel and backed up by former prisoners.

"One of the detainees had described being taken out and tied to a post and having rubber bullets fired at them. They were being made to kneel cruciform in the sun until they collapsed," Bourke told the ABC.

Media reports have highlighted that many detainees have attempted suicide and are suffering mental health problems backed up claims of harsh treatment, he said.

To International Tribunals

The Guanatamo detainees suffer "old-fashioned torture"

Bourke is considering taking their cases to international tribunals, including the United Nations Standing Committee on Torture.

He said governments around the world must stand up to the U.S. government and demand that the United Nations investigate the reports of torture.

In an interview from the U.S. with the World Today, a comprehensive current affairs program, lawyers representing two Australians being held by the U.S., namely said that they could be among those being tortured at the Guantanamo base.

Earlier this year, U.S. officials denied using torture and said detainees are interrogated humanely, allowed to practice their religion and given good medical care.

The U.S. government rarely comments on activities at the prison which has been dubbed Camp X-ray because of the strict security.

Families are denied access and can only communicate with detainees through heavily censored mail. Human rights groups and the media have been given only limited and strictly controlled access.

Many governments and rights group including the United Nations have spoken out against the treatment of the Guantanamo detainees, who U.S. President George Bush has said are not prisoners of war and thus cannot benefit from rights entitled to them under the Geneva Convention.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch had frequently called on the Bush administration to investigate and address charges of torture of those detainees or risk criminal prosecution.

Amnesty accused the Bush administration of violating human rights afforded by the Geneva conventions by refusing to allow the prisoners access to lawyers, courts or relatives.

A Pakistani man who was released from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba filed suit on Sunday, July 20, against the United States for 10.4 million dollars in compensation for the "torture and humiliation" he faced in detention.

Reports also said that the U.S. imposed strict reporting limits on the journalists to visit the detention camp since the arrests of a Muslim army chaplain and two interpreters.