'The things I saw at Guantanamo'

Stephen Xenakis, a retired brigadier general and US Army medical corps officer, is still haunted by a 2008 meeting at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a room that had previously been used for interrogations. The psychiatrist was there to meet Omar Khadr, who had been arrested in Afghanistan in 2002 at the age of 15 on charges of killing an American medic by throwing a grenade during a firefight. The discussion between the two was short.

Despite the chill of the air conditioning, Dr Xenakis observed that Khadr - 22 at the time - was sweating. "He took off his shirt. It was evident that he was having a panic attack, but he wouldn't admit it," the former US military official tells Kathimerini. "He only told me he was nervous when I asked if I could check his pulse."

As Xenakis was to learn later, one of Khadr's previous experiences in that room involved US...