Lakhdar Boumediene is a former relief worker for the Islamic counterpart of the Red Cross, the Red... 
(ABC News)"I thought America, the big country, they have CIA, FBI. Maybe one week, two weeks, they know I am innocent. I can go back to my home, to my home," he said.
But instead, Boumediene said he endured harsh treatment for more than seven years. He said he was kept awake for 16 days straight, and physically abused repeatedly.
Asked if he thought he was tortured, Boumediene was unequivocal.
"I don't think. I'm sure," he said.
Boumediene described being pulled up from under his arms while sitting in a chair with his legs shackled, stretching him. He said that he was forced to run with the camp's guards and if he could not keep up, he was dragged, bloody and bruised.
He described what he called the "games" the guards would play after he began a hunger strike, putting his food IV up his nose and poking the hypodermic needle in the wrong part of his arm.
"You think that's not torture? What's this? What can you call this? Torture or what?" he said, indicating the scars he bears from tight shackles. "I'm an animal? I'm not a human?"
Vice President Dick Cheney has been adamant in his defense of the Guantanamo detention center and the treatment of those held there.
Last week Cheney said, "The facility down there is a fine facility. These people are very well treated."
Oddly, Boumediene said no one at Gitmo ever asked him about the alleged plot to blow up the embassies in Sarajevo. They wanted to know what he knew about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, he recounted, which was nothing.
Boumediene said it was in his interest to lie to the interrogators, who would reward the detainees if they admitted guilt.
"If I tell my interrogator, I am from Al Qaeda, I saw Osama bin Laden, he was my boss, I help him, they will tell me, 'Oh you are a good man,'" he said. "But if I refuse ? I tell them I'm innocent, never was I terrorist, never never, they tell me. 'You are, you are not cooperating, I have to punch you.'"
After nearly four years locked up, Boumediene went on a hunger strike to protest his treatment.
He said he had believed that the United States honored religious diversity but believed guards at Guantanamo took actions to disrespect his religious beliefs. "They shaved my beard, because they don't respect me, because the guards they don't let me sleep. They don't let me read my Koran, they don't let me pray normal like people like Muslim outside the Guantanamo," he said.
Boumediene broke his hunger strike just twice over 2½ years -- first, when he learned of Barack Obama's election win and next when Judge Leon ordered his release.
Despite the harsh treatment and uncertainty over his fate, Boumediene said he did not want to die because he had something to live for back home.
"Every day, I think about my wife and my daughters," he said.
Boumediene's personal effects were taken from him at Guantanamo, including his wedding ring. He now has a stack of letters, that his wife wrote to him that never arrived, a "return to sender" stamp on the envelope.
"Over there you lose all the hopes, you lose all hope," he said. "Any good news, they don't want you to be happy."
It took more than six years before Boumediene started to receive good news.
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