Why imprison us? We are just old men, say inmates of Guantanamo

Two weary, white-bearded old men who were imprisoned in secret and without charge at the United States' Guantanamo Bay Naval Base for at least eight months were back in Afghanistan yesterday, saying they never presented a threat to anyone.

Released by the Americans – who said they were no longer of interest to them – the Afghans told of grim conditions at the base, including being held in stifling and tiny cells and enduring hours of interrogation. As they spoke, the Pentagon confirmed the arrival of a plane at the Cuban prison camp with what was thought to be 30 detainees, but refused to give further details.

The old men, Faiz Mohammed and Mohammed Sediq, were freed with a third Afghan, Jan Mohammed, in his mid-thirties. Months ago, they had been captured, blindfolded, shackled and flown thousands of miles from home.

Yesterday, sitting cross-legged on hospital beds in Kabul, where they had a check-up, the men gave differing accounts of their detention to reporters, including allegations of being locked in 8ft-square swelteringly hot cells, denied contact with their families, and interrogated for hours. But they said they were not tortured or beaten, and looked relatively healthy, though frail.

At the time of their detention, US officials said they were rounding up high-ranking "terrorists". Faiz Mohammed, who appears to be at least in his seventies. A New York Times correspondent described him as a "partially deaf, shrivelled old man unable to answer simple questions", at times "babbling like a child". The old man told the Associated Press: "I don't know why the Americans arrested me. I told them I was innocent. I'm just an old man."

Asked if he was angry at the American soldiers who arrested him, he replied: "I don't mind. They took my old clothes and gave me new clothes." He was still wearing a Guantanamo identity tag on his wrist showing his date of birth to be 1931, although, like many Afghans, he was unsure of his age, and at one point claimed to be 105. "My family haven't heard from me, and I haven't heard from them," he said tremulously. He said he was arrested at a mosque in the Afghan province of Uruzgan, where he had gone to seek medication. He said he was tied and blindfolded, then flown by helicopter to Kandahar, then by plane to Cuba.

"They interrogated us for hours at a time. They wanted to know, 'Where are you from? Are you a member of the Taliban? Did you support the Taliban? Were your relatives Taliban? Did the Taliban give you weapons?' " He said the Afghan prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were low-level Taliban fighters and mullahs, or religious leaders. They were kept in small cells that housed a dozen prisoners each.

"They treated us well. We had enough food. We could pray and wash five times a day. We had the Koran and read it all the time." All three spoke of repeated interrogations, each lasting at least an hour.

Mohammed Sediq, a gnarled figure with a cane, also apparently in his seventies, said inmates were "held in small cages" and were "eating and defecating at the same place" and "treated like animals". The New York Times said Mohammed Sediq complained of being locked in stifling cells 24 hours a day, with only two 15-minute-breaks a week for exercise. But he also said the guards treated their religion with respect.

Jan Mohammed, a Taliban recruit, said he was handed over to US troops after capture by a Northern Alliance commander. He said he had been forced to fight for the Taliban. "I had no choice but to join them," he said. "We are happy now. You can imagine if you release a bird from a cage, it will be happy." He said the only Red Cross message he had from his family was three days before he was flown out of Cuba.

Jamie Fellner, director of Human Rights Watch's US programme, said: "When this began, US officials said they had screened these people, and they were the worst of the worst. [President] George Bush called them killers. Now it turns out an unknown number may have been picked up by mistake, or at least certainly didn't meet that criteria."

The Pentagon announced last week it was planning to release some of the detainees from 43 countries who were no longer of intelligence value or candidates for prosecution.