WASHINGTON: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said an allegation by a former Iraqi detainee that US troops threatened to put him in a cage with a lion was “farfetched.” Sherzad Khalid made the charge in television and newspaper interviews with another former Iraqi detainee, Thahee Sabbar, a fellow plaintiff in a lawsuit against Rumsfeld and top US military commanders that was filed in March.
They said they were beaten, deprived of food and sleep, given electric shocks, shot with rubber bullets and subjected to mock executions after being detained by US soldiers in July 2003.
Khalid told ABC television US soldiers at one point took him to a cage with a live lion inside and threatened to throw him to the lion if he did not confess. In an interview with the Washington Post, he recounted being shoved into a cage with the lion at one of the presidential palaces in Baghdad three times before being lined up for a mock execution.
Rumsfeld said detainees are trained to lie about their treatment, citing a terrorist training manual found in the British city of Manchester. Both former detainees were released after several months without any charges filed against them.
