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CNN Live At Daybreak

International Concern Raised Over Conditions in Camp X-ray

Aired January 21, 2002 - 06:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COSTELLO: More al Qaeda and Taliban detainees have arrived at Camp X-Ray. That now brings the total to 144 at the makeshift U.S. prison at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, and as the number of detainees grows, so does concern about how they're being treated.

More on this from reporter Andrea Catherwood.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANDREA CATHERWOOD, ITV NEWS (voice-over): Shuffling in chains, this is one of the men America calls the worst of the worst. Now caged inside this makeshift prison called Camp X-Ray on a remote U.S. Naval base in Cuba with shaven heads and beards, in orange boiler suits, they are unrecognizable as Taliban or al Qaeda fighters captured in Afghanistan.

Journalists here are working under heavy U.S. military restrictions. We were escorted to Camp X-Ray by ferry. It's in a remote part of this U.S. base. We were told for security reasons, we could only film the camp from one location, 200 yards from the parameter fence.

But we could clearly see prisoners tripped up inside eight-by- eight foot metal cages, using towels of head scarves to protect them from the glaring sun.

(on camera): The heat here is intense, and the guards say that it's baking inside the prison cells with their concrete floors and wire caging, and the prisoners are too hot and too lethargic to do anything but lie on the floor of their units.

(voice-over): Prisoners are only allowed out of their cells to shower or use the latrines. Then, they are bond hand and foot. The U.S. Army demonstrated for us that shackling process. The U.S. Navy has released the first pictures of detainees arriving at the base taken over a week ago. These images have raised concerns that this level of deliberate disorientation is neither humane nor justified.

The Red Cross are now here interviewing prisoners, but as more prisoners arrive, the military say they'll start putting two to a cell, and conditions here are set to deteriorate rather than improve.

Andrea Catherwood, ITV News, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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