November 14, 2005
The Guardian said it had unearthed official papers which showed that 3573 men passed through the centre between July, 1940 and September, 1948.
Several detainees were systematically beaten, forced to stand still for more than 24 hours, deprived of sleep and threatened with unnecessary surgery or execution, the newspaper said.
Some are alleged to have been starved, subjected to extremes of temperature, while others claimed they had been threatened with electric shocks and menaced by interrogators with red-hot pokers.
The London Cage was installed in a row of mansions in the capital’s plush Kensington Palace Gardens, one of the world’s most exclusive streets.
The Guardian garnered the information from Britain’s National Archives and the Red Cross in Geneva, from which incidents at the Cage were carefully concealed.
The London office of the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre had space for 60 prisoners at a time and five interrogation rooms.
More than 1000 were persuaded to give statements about war crimes.
The camp was run by Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Scotland.
A report by MI5, Britain’s interior security service, concluded that Lt-Col Scotland had been guilty of “clear breaches” of the Geneva Convention and that some interrogation methods “completely contradicted” international law.
Lt-Col Scotland submitted his memoirs for censorship in 1950.
An MI5 assessment found it detailed breaches of the Geneva Convention, noting that prisoners had been forced to kneel while they were beaten, stand to attention for 26 hours and threatened with “an unnecessary operation” and execution.
A heavily edited version was published in 1957.
A letter of complaint from German SS captain Fritz Knoechlein described his treatment after entering the London Cage in October, 1946.
“Unable to make the desired confession”, Knoechlein said he was stripped and deprived of sleep for four days. He claimed he was kicked, doused in cold water, pushed down stairs and beaten with a cudgel.
The defence ministry is still withholding papers on the London Cage.
Source: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17237788-38200,00.html
