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Report: British camp used torture after WWII

LONDON - Prisoners were tortured and starved to death in a post-World War II interrogation camp run by Britain for former Nazis and others, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The Guardian's report cited documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act that described the suffering of some of 372 men and 44 women detained at the camp in Bad Nenndorf, a spa town in northwest Germany occupied by the British after the war. The camp was closed in July 1947.

Many prisoners had been former Nazi party members or former Secret Service members, rounded up to prevent any insurgency, the Guardian said. Other detainees included businessmen and industrialists who had flourished under Adolf Hitler's regime.

The documents detail an investigation by Inspector Tom Hayward, a Scotland Yard detective.

The report included the result of an investigation into the death of one inmate, Walter Bergmann, who had offered to spy for the British but came under suspicion because he spoke Russian.

"There seems little doubt that Bergmann, against whom no charge of any crime has been made, but on the contrary, who appears to be a man who has given every assistance, and that of considerable value, has lost his life through malnutrition and lack of medical care," Hayward reported.

Prisoners told Hayward they had been whipped and beaten. Hayward wrote that "our inquiries of warders and guards produced most unexpected corroboration."

His reports led to courts-martial of three men. Two were acquitted and the other was found guilty of neglecting inmates and dismissed, the newspaper reported.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A detainee at the U.S. prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, pulled stitches out of his arm this week in what was at least his 10th suicide attempt, the Justice Department said.

Jumaa Mohammed al-Dossary, 32, of Bahrain was hospitalized Monday after pulling out his stitches for at least the second time, the Justice Department said in a letter released by Dossary's attorney Saturday.

Dossary also cut his biceps, the letter said, without specifying how.

"The Guantanamo staff immediately intervened," Justice Department lawyer Edward H. White wrote. "He has been treated and is currently in stable condition."

Dossary's attorney, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, has asked for a court order easing conditions for his client, who has been held at Guantanamo since February 2002.

Dossary said in a meeting with Colangelo-Bryan before Monday's suicide attempt that, "he wanted to kill himself so that he could send a message to the world that conditions at Guantanamo are intolerable," according to declassified notes from their conversation.

Defense lawyers allege that Dossary, who has not been charged, has been in isolation for much of the past two years. The military has said he has regular contact with other prisoners.

KINSHASA, Congo - Rioters burned three polling stations in Congo's capital Saturday on the eve of a crucial vote on a draft constitution that grants greater autonomy to mineral-laden regions but is viewed by many as another attempt by corrupt politicians to enrich themselves.

Some 24-million people in the war-beleaguered central African nation are registered to cast ballots in today's referendum on whether to adopt the national charter. Congolese haven't voted en masse since 1970.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The chief U.N. investigator into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said in remarks published Saturday that he believed Syrian authorities were behind the killing.

It was the first time that Detlev Mehlis has unequivocally accused Syria of responsibility for Hariri's assassination since opening the U.N. probe in June.

Asked by the London-based Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat if he was firmly convinced that Syria was behind Hariri's killing, Mehlis replied, "Yes."

Asked whether he was directly accusing the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Mehlis said, "Let's say the Syrian authorities." He declined to elaborate.

Syria has denied involvement.

NAIROBI, Kenya - A first group of southern Sudanese refugees began their journey home Saturday after two decades of living in a camp in Kenya, the U.N. World Food Program said.

The voluntary repatriation of 147 refugees is the first such return by some of the hundreds of thousands of Sudanese who fled the country during its long-running civil war.

About 560,000 Sudanese living in camps and settlements in seven neighboring countries are expected to go home.