Camp 1391 Prison

 military, prison, military prison

Camp 1391 is a controversial Israel Defense Force prison. The existence of the camp and its inmates was completely unknown to the public until 2004 and details of its nature are still not entirely clear.

Dubbed "the Israeli Guantanamo",the secret was kept in such a manner as to be even unknown to Prof. David Libai, Minister of Justice in Yitzhak Rabin's government and member of the secret services related ministerial committee.According to Leah Tsemel, an Israeli lawyer who specialises in advising Palestinians, "Anyone entering the prison can be made to disappear, potentially forever, it's no different from the jails run by tinpot South American dictators."

According to accounts of former captives, the detainees are led into the facility blindfolded, and kept in cells (most are 2 m × 2 m) with no natural light. Two smaller cells (1.25 m × 1.25 m) with heavy steel doors and black or red walls, and almost no light, are used for solitary confinement. Some of the cells do not have adequate toilet facilities and the guards control the running water.

Mustafa Dirani, a Hamas commander who was captured by the Israelis in May 1994 and released in 2004 as part of a prisoner swap, has filed a suit in Tel Aviv's district court claiming he was sexually abused in the prison. It has been acknowledged by the government of Israel that "within the framework of a military police investigation the suspicion arose that an interrogator who questioned the complainant threatened to perform a sexual act on the complainant".

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/nov/14/israel2