Inside Lebanon's 'torture' prison

Prisoners now free to tell of al-Khiam prison

By Hilary Andersson in al-Khiam

Soon after the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon, the guards of the notorious Khiam prison fled, leaving the prisoners free.

More than 100 men women and children had been held in appalling conditions.

Torture involved beatings, electric shocks and being hung by the arms for hours

The jail is now empty and a flag of the Lebanese Hezbollah is posted at the gates, but the prisoners' testimonies and the cells bear witness to what went on inside.

Prisoners, some jailed for over ten years without trial, were crammed into tiny, filthy spaces where they ate and slept.

They were allowed out, usually once a week for 15 to 30 minutes, to visit a walled area with no roof called "the sun room."

Punishment cells

They said they were routinely tortured for the first three months of their stay for three hours a day, three times a day.

A prisoner from Al Khiam is reunited with his family

The torture, which took place in a row of interrogation rooms, would involve beatings, being prodded with live electrical cable in sensitive parts of the body, and being hung from painful positions.

Near a post in a courtyard from where the prisoners said they would be hung by their arms for hours at a time, hoods were lying on the ground.

These were put on the prisoners' heads during the torture, a stretcher laid nearby presumably in case of collapse.

The prison was also equipped with a row of punishment cells so small that it was only possible to sit in them but not lie down.

Visits by soldiers

Prisoners would be left in these for up to ten days at a time.

Throughout the jail was the stench of filth.

Prisoners crammed into cells where they lived, ate and slept

Al-Khiam was run by the SLA and Israel has always denied any involvement.

But the prisoners said Israeli soldiers would regularly visit the jail.

Some said they heard Hebrew being spoken in the interrogation cells whilst their heads were covered with the hoods.