from The First Statement of David Hicks, at the UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas

   I also witnessed many other types of physical abuse of the detainees. I witnessed a Saudi detainee being beaten by an Army guard while at Camp X-Ray. The Saudi, whose name is Jumma, was arguing with a guard by the name of Smith, who was a member of the IRF team and wore kneepads and IRF gear. This incident happened close to when I was transferred from X-Ray to Camp Delta. Jumma was ordered to lie on his stomach in his cell. Jumma lay down as ordered, but continued to argue with Smith, who became very angry, jumped up and came down with his knees on Jumma's back. Smith then grabbed Jumma by the head and slammed his face into the concrete 10 to 20 times.

    Jumma was not moving at that point. Other guards came in and began kicking Jumma. Then Smith began punching Jumma in the face. Jumma was unconscious and not moving. He was picked up and carried unconscious from the cell, and placed in the hospital, where he remained for two weeks. Jumma had a broken wrist and broken ribs from the beating. Approximately 40 detainees witnessed this beating, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was made aware of it. Also, I could see afterward that the guards had great difficulty in removing Jumma's blood from the concrete floor, and had to use hoses, and great exertion scrubbing over a period of time.

When Deghayes finally arrived at Guantánamo in September 2002, he found himself the target of the feared IRF teams.

    "They brought their pepper spray and held him down. They held both of his eyes open and sprayed it into his eyes and later took a towel soaked in pepper spray and rubbed it in his eyes.

    "Omar could not see from either eye for two weeks, but he gradually got sight back in one eye.

    "He's totally blind in the right eye. I can report that his right eye is all white and milky -- he can't see out of it because he has been blinded by the U.S. in Guantánamo."

   "There were usually five people on an ERF team. On this occasion there were eight of them. When Jumah saw them coming, he realized something was wrong and was lying on the floor with his head in his hands. If you're on the floor with your hands on your head, then you would hope that all they would do would be to come in and put the chains on you. That is what they're supposed to do.

    "The first man is meant to go in with a shield. On this occasion, the man with the shield threw the shield away, took his helmet off, when the door was unlocked ran in and did a knee drop onto Jumah's back just between his shoulder blades with his full weight. He must have been about 240 pounds in weight. His name was Smith. He was a sergeant E-5. Once he had done that, the others came in and were punching and kicking Jumah. While they were doing that the female officer then came in and was kicking his stomach. Jumah had had an operation and had metal rods in his stomach clamped together in the operation.

    "The officer Smith was the MP sergeant who was punching him. He grabbed his head with one hand and with the other hand punched him repeatedly in the face. His nose was broken. He pushed his face, and he smashed it into the concrete floor. All of this should be on video. There was blood everywhere. When they took him out, they hosed the cell down and the water ran red with blood. We all saw it."

(rolling my eyes)