Former Afghan ambassador to Pak says 'death threats were routine technique' by CIA guards

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who had served as an Afghan ambassador in Pakistan during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan said while commenting on the CIA torture report that "death threats were a routine technique of the guards" when he was detained at Guantanamo Bay by the agency for four years in the U.S. prison camp in Cuba.

Zaeef said that the CIA used to force him and other Guantanamo inmates to reveal information during interrogations.

He was also threatened by three gunmen and two guards that they would shoot him if he refused to reply to their questions, reported the Express Tribune.

The military and security agencies kept many Afghanis and Pakistanis amongst terror suspects and their defence lawyers said that most of them were kept without free trial and legal rights.

Zaeef wrote in his book that he handed over to the U.S. troops about how he was picked up from his home in Islamabad in late 2001 and released in September 2005 after languishing in detention at Bagram, Kandahar in Afghanistan and Guantanano.

The ex-Afghan envoy also said that they were deprived of sleep and kept in solitary confinement to make them share information.

Zaeef accused the U.S. administration of violating human rights and pursuing policies only to feed their own interests.