WASHINGTON, Dec 19: Amid efforts by a bipartisan coalition in Congress to ban torture and inhumane treatment of detainees in the “war on terror”, a major US human rights groups charged on Monday that Washington ran a secret prison in Afghanistan where suspected terrorists were held in total darkness for days and even weeks at a time from 2002 until at least last year.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the prison was known by the inmates as the “dark prison” or “prison of darkness” where they were chained to the walls, deprived of food and drinking water, and continuously subjected to loud heavy-metal or rap music apparently designed to disorient them and break down their will. Their shackles often made it impossible to lie down or sleep, and interrogations carried out apparently by civilian US personnel — presumed to be CIA operatives — included slaps and punches. Guards at the prison were mostly Afghan, according to the report.

According to HRW, the prison was off-limits to representatives of the ICRC or other independent agencies.

“We’re not talking about torture in the abstract, but the real thing,” said HRW’s John Sifton. “US personnel and officials may be criminally liable, and a special prosecutor is needed to investigate.”

The HRW release, which was based primarily on accounts given to their lawyers by seven detainees currently being held at the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, came as top US officials, including President George W.

Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, continued to deny that the Bush administration had ever approved the use of torture or inhumane treatment of terrorist suspects.

During a White House meeting on Thursday with Sen. John McCain, who has led the Congressional drive to ban torture and inhumane treatment in the “war on terror”, Bush, who had for several months threatened to veto such legislation if it reached his desk, insisted that his administration was innocent.

“We’ve been happy to work with (McCain) to achieve a common objective,” he said, after a lopsided vote the day before in the House of Representatives in favour of the McCain Amendment, “and that is to make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention on torture, whether it be here, at home or abroad.”

But that position has been increasingly difficult to sustain, as more and more details about the treatment of detainees has leaked to the media and Congress. Indeed, the Senate this week is expected to approve a resolution that will require the administration to provide detailed reports every 90 days about secret detention facilities maintained by the US overseas.

Such secret facilities have also become a source of contention and embarrassment between the US and its European allies.

The “dark prison” appears to have been one of these sites, at least for the purposes of screening detainees for their intelligence value.

HRW, which has repeatedly been denied access to Guantanamo prisoners, has not interviewed any of the detainees directly. Their allegations were instead communicated to HRW through their attorneys but, according to the rights group, are sufficiently consistent and credible to warrant an official investigation. —Dawn/ IPS News Service