Amnesty says torture routine in Mauritania

By Daniel Magnowski

DAKAR (Reuters) - Mauritanian security forces routinely torture detainees, using electric shocks, burns and sexual violence, and this has increased since a military coup in August, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

The human rights watchdog issued a report entitled "Torture At The Heart Of The State" which accused Mauritanian authorities of employing torture as their only method of investigation.

There was no immediate comment from the government.

The Saharan Islamic state has been a Western ally in the fight against al Qaeda. It also won praise for holding democratic elections in 2007 until a coup in August this year by military chiefs deposed its elected president and brought international condemnation and the threat of sanctions.

"Torture is used to extract confessions while detainees are being held in custody but also to humiliate and punish prisoners," the report, which cited detailed testimony mostly from the period before the coup, said.

"The security apparatus has adopted torture as a system of investigation and repression. It is deeply anchored in the culture of the security forces, which act with complete impunity," it said.

Such widespread use of torture was the result of several decades of authoritarian rule, Amnesty said.

Mauritania's first democratically elected leader, President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, served only 18 months in office before he was ousted in the August 6 coup led by former presidential guard head General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz.

Since Aziz took control, torture had become even more common, Amnesty said.

"The recent coup in August 2008 and the strengthening of the fight against 'terrorism' ... has led to the increased use of torture against those suspected of such acts," it said.

BEATINGS, BURNS

The U.S., France and the World Bank suspended some non-humanitarian aid to Mauritania after the coup, but Washington has signaled it would be willing to help against a specific terrorism threat, should this situation occur.

Amnesty said members of the security forces used torture in the knowledge they would be backed by judicial authorities.

"Judges almost invariably regard as admissible evidence statements extracted under torture and use these 'confessions' to convict defendants, often in the absence of any other material proof," it said.

In one case, an alleged Islamist arrested in January this year said his torturers sang menacing songs while another group beat him.