Report: Detainees tortured in U.S. custody

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 18 (UPI) -- A human rights group accused the U.S. government of committing war crimes in a report alleging torture on several terrorist suspects in U.S. custody.

Physicians for Human Rights announced its findings Wednesday after evaluating 11 detainees -- held but never charged -- at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan, CNN reported.

"We found clear physical and psychological evidence of torture and abuse often causing lasting suffering," said Dr. Allen Keller, a medical evaluator for the study.

The doctors' group, based in Cambridge, Mass., said it uncovered medical evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and sodomy.

"There is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account," retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Army's investigation of the Abu Ghraib scandal, wrote in the report's preface.

The report calls on the U.S. government formally apology to detainees who were tortured and ill-treated.

The group said its findings weren't general statements about the treatment of all detainees, but could conclude the 11 represented "a much larger number of detainees subjected to torture and ill-treatment while in U.S. custody."

The report also called on U.S. President George Bush's administration to repudiate all forms of torture and investigate detention and interrogation at U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.