The following are excerpts from an interview with Walid Muhammad Hajj, a Sudanese national who was released from the detention center at Guantanamo. The program aired on Al-Jazeera TV on December 19, 2010.
To view this clip on MEMRI TV, visit http://www.memri.org/legacy/clip/2751.
The Americans Would Extract Information from Prisoners by Desecrating the Koran
Walid Muhammad Hajj: "The Americans in the prison used to employ a form of psychological warfare. This 'Koran method' really affected the guys. "
Interviewer: "What was the method?"
Walid Muhammad Hajj: "The interrogator would place his foot on the Koran, while you were shackled, and would say: 'Talk. I have the Koran under my foot. If you want me to remove it, start talking.' Some soldiers would tear pages out of the Koran, and would use them to wipe their boots."
Interviewer: "In front of you?"
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Walid Muhammad Hajj: "Yes. This really affected the guys."
Interviewer: "They deny such allegations."
Walid Muhammad Hajj: "No, these things did happen."
Interviewer: "They used the Koran for this?"
Walid Muhammad Hajj: "Daily. This was a form of provocation. For example, one of them would hold the Koran up like this, under the pretext of checking it, and suddenly the Koran would fall, and he would say: 'Sorry.' They had all kinds of methods like this. These things would affect the guys.
"Because of these things, one of the guys, I don’t remember if he was Yemeni or Saudi, invented a very effective 'weapon.' To this day, the Americans have not found a solution for it."
Interviewer: "What is this weapon?"
"Not a Single U.S. General was Spared Feces to His Face in Guantanamo"
Walid Muhammad Hajj: "We called it the 'nuclear weapon.' The way the guys dealt with the affront to the Koran was to fill a cup with feces, and if a soldier or an officer affronted the Koran, we would throw the feces directly at his face. Not a single U.S. general was spared feces to his face in Guantanamo. In particular, I remember Miller, the general who was at Abu Ghreib."
Interviewer: "He was the commander of Guantanamo, and was transferred to Abu Ghreib."
Walid Muhammad Hajj: "Yes. He was one of the generals who was hit in the face by feces."
Interviewer: "How would you do it? Would you ambush them, or what?"
Walid Muhammad Hajj: "The feces, this 'nuclear weapon,' made a strong impact on the Americans, so much so that the prison administration convened, to discuss how to resolve this problem. At first, delegations from Congress and the Pentagon would come to see this zoo. They would look right and left, and smile in a mocking way, but after this weapon appeared, they stopped coming."
Interviewer: "Did you use it against them too?"
Walid Muhammad Hajj: "No, the prison administration stopped their visits. Out of fear that they would be exposed to the 'nuclear weapon.'" […]
