Afghan's Allegation of Abuse Echoes Accounts From Iraq

The stern police officer doffed his peaked uniform cap and placed it carefully on his parlor carpet. He drew his asthma inhaler from his pocket and set aside his teacup. Then he knelt and twisted his gaunt frame into a series of contorted positions, grimacing in pain and panting for breath. Col. Syed Nabi Siddiqui, 47, was acting out the humiliating treatment he said he received during 40 days as a detainee in three U.S. military prisons last year. He said his captors made barnyard jokes about his manhood, bent him into painful postures, photographed him naked, prevented him from sleeping, beat and stoned him, and taunted him while he relieved himself in a bucket. “I kept begging them for water and they would spray something on my face, so I had to lick the drops,” Siddiqui recounted at home in his village in Paktia province, as four of his young sons listened silently. “They asked me stupid questions like did I know Fidel Castro. . . . They covered my face and told me they put a snake and a scorpion on my neck. I thought I was going to die, but they were always laughing, like it was all a joke.” Full Story