Images of the abuse at Abu Ghraib have forced Mohamed Maddy to relive the eight months he spent in American prisons, and especially the months he spent at the special housing unit at the Metropolitan Detention Center. "I can see that it is almost the same," he writes in an e-mail from Cairo, where he's lived with his two sons since being deported in May 2002. "[W]e were all pushed viciously against the wall, hands tied behind back, chains on both legs, lots of hits on the face and the rest of the body, severe humiliation like I never saw before, they were cursing us almost every minute of the day and prevented us from sleeping. In brief, the treatment was very inhuman and against all human rights and ethics."

Of course, this may sound like the hyperbole of a traumatized man, but the inspector general's report on conditions at MDC confirm most of what he says. "[W]e concluded that it was inappropriate for staff members in the ADMAX SHU [Administrative Maximum Special Housing Unit] to routinely film strip searches showing the detainees naked, and that on occasion staff members inappropriately used strip searches to intimidate and punish detainees," the report says. It cites videotapes of the strip searches in which the voices of female officers can clearly be heard, confirming detainees' reports that they were stripped in front of women. On some tapes, the report says, "staff members laughed, exchanged suggestive looks and made funny noises before and during strip searches."

The report also found evidence of routine physical abuse. "[W]e concluded, based on videotape evidence, detainees' statements, witnesses' observations, and staff members who corroborated some allegations of abuse, that some MDC staff members slammed and bounced detainees into the walls at the MDC and inappropriately pressed detainees' heads against walls," the report says. "We also found that some officers inappropriately twisted and bent detainees' arms, hands, wrists, and fingers, and caused them unnecessary physical pain; inappropriately carried or lifted detainees; and raised or pulled detainees' arms in painful ways. In addition, we believe some officers improperly used handcuffs, occasionally stepped on compliant detainees' leg restraint chains, and were needlessly forceful and rough with the detainees -- all conduct that violates [Bureau of Prisons] policy."

There were also numerous reports that, in addition to the lights being left on in the cell for 24 hours a day, officers went out of their way to keep detainees awake. "For example, one detainee claimed that officers kicked the doors non-stop in order to keep the detainees from sleeping," the inspector general's report says. "He stated that for the first two or three weeks he was at the MDC, one of the officers walked by about every 15 minutes throughout the night, kicked the doors to wake up the detainees, and yelled things such as, 'Motherfuckers,' 'Assholes,' and 'Welcome to America.' ... Another detainee said that officers would not let the detainees sleep during the day or night from the time he arrived at the MDC in the beginning of October through mid-November 2001."

Almost all the 9/11 prisoners at MDC were being held for interrogation, not because police had any evidence connecting them to terrorism. Maddy was one of the few in the unit who had actually committed a crime -- while working for a passenger services company at JFK airport, he had smuggled his wife and sons into the country.

Today, Maddy lives in a cacophonous Cairo suburb where car horns compete with mournful Arab pop singers and small boys driving donkey carts clatter down dusty side streets. He's a hospitable man who cooks me a dinner of grilled chicken and Greek salad while his teenage sons, Eslam and Karim, play a James Bond video game on their Xbox and listen to the soundtrack from Eminem's "8 Mile." Friendly as he is, though, he can't hide a sadness that's made him lose interest in everything in the world except his boys and his misfortunes.

In prison, he was questioned "six, seven or eight times," he says, usually about how often he went to the mosque and whether he knows any "bad people in the USA." Not being a radical man -- he has a picture of Bill Clinton hanging on the wall of his Cairo apartment -- he was little help. "I tell them the truth, but they say, 'You are liar,'" he says.

Indeed, several detainees say it was their professions of innocence that led to weeks of solitary confinement and other torments.

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