Guantanamo prisoner’s book details US torture tactics

In his book released Tuesday, Mauretanian-held prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi has given details of his capture and ensuing torture, forced eating and drinking, sleep deprivation and beatings.

His book, Guantanamo Diary, has been published after US military censors took a heavy hand to the final version.

Slahi, who has never been charged with any crimes, was released in 2010 after US District Court Judge James Robertson found that the government was unable to prove at the time of his capture that he was a member of al-Qaeda.

In a report published in 2009, the Senate Armed Services Committee also detailed the torture on Slahi.

According to the report, Slahi was kept in isolation for months, held in a freezing cell, shackled to the floor, deprived of food, made to drink salt water, forced to stand in a room with strobe lights and heavy metal music for hours, forbidden from praying and beaten.

The Guantanamo Bay prison at the US naval base in Cuba was opened in January 2002 to hold terror suspects captured during the so-called war on terror.

The US has come under international pressure for using torture, including water-boarding and force-feeding suspects at the prison.

Some 122 people are still imprisoned in the prison.

During his sixth State of the Union speech on Wednesday, President Barack Obama once again promised to shut down the prison. He had promised to close the prison before his election in 2008.