Chaplain who served at Guantanamo says he saw no prisoner abuse there

Published: 2004-05-24

SLATERSVILLE, R.I. (CNS) -- U.S. officials claim the military's Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba was the model for holding prisoners in Iraq, but a Rhode Island priest said nothing like the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq ever happened at Guantanamo while he served there as senior chaplain. "I think I would have known about it because I was in touch with soldiers of all different units," said Father Raymond A. Tetreault, a lieutenant colonel in the 43rd Military Police Brigade of the Rhode Island Army National Guard. "Many of the guards didn't want to be there," he said. "They didn't like the detainees, but they didn't abuse them. ... I don't think that what happened at Abu Ghraib could have happened when I was there" at Guantanamo Bay. Father Tetreault, pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Slatersville, served as a senior chaplain at Guantanamo from May to December in 2002. He was interviewed by The Providence Visitor, newspaper of the Providence Diocese.

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