Three British men freed from US custody at Guantanamo Bay said they were beaten by American soldiers in Afghanistan and pressured into falsely confessing they'd been caught on video with Osama bin Laden, British newspapers reported yesterday.

　　The three, friends from Tipton, in central England, were among five Britons flown home from Guantanamo last Tuesday. All, held for more than two years, have been released without charge.

　　London newspapers, The Observer and The Mail on Sunday, yesterday reported that the men said they believe there are few, if any, major terrorists at Guantanamo.

　　US authorities say prisoners at the camp are suspected of links to the Taliban or the al-Qaida terror network.

　　Asif Iqbal, 22, Ruhal Ahmed, 22, and Shafiq Rasul, 26, reportedly said they were beaten by US soldiers while being held at Kandahar, Afghanistan. Guards interrogated them while holding guns to their heads, they were quoted as saying.

　　When US soldiers took custody of the men, who had been held by an Afghan warlord's troops, the soldiers forced them to kneel with their foreheads touching the ground for two to three hours, they said.

　　"If your head wasn't touching the floor or you let it rise up a little they put their boots on the back of your neck and forced it down," Iqbal reportedly said.

　　They reportedly said they were bound in leg irons and hand shackles for the 22-hour flight from Afghanistan to Cuba.

　　"I lost feeling in my hands for the next six months," Rasul reportedly said.

　　The men described witnessing and experiencing violence at Guantanamo and said soldiers in a unit known as the Extreme Reaction Force would slam prisoners to the ground and beat them.

　　US Secretary of State Colin Powell told British television network ITV in an interview aired on Friday it was "unlikely" detainees were beaten at Guantanamo. "Because we are Americans, we don't abuse people who are in our care," he said.

　　(The Associated Press)