Next door, another prisoner in an orange jumpsuit pours tea from a Thermos, fingers a Snickers wrapper and takes a drag on a cigarette as he laughs with a female interrogator and squints at a mugshot that she hands him of a man with piercing ebony eyes.

A two-day tour of Guantanamo Bay granted Associated Press (AP) the most extensive access yet allowed for independent journalists, giving them views of about 50 detainees, including some in a new maximum-security prison. One detainee said that he, too, was a reporter.

Watching through mirrored glass, and with the sound turned off, AP also witnessed three interrogations, including one in the part of the camp reserved for problem detainees and prisoners believed to hold information important to the fight against international terrorist groups.

No armed guards were present at the interrogations and officers said that they were never used during these sessions. They said that each detainee was generally questioned twice a week, with sessions usually lasting two to four hours, with a maximum of 15 hours a day.

The scenes seen by an AP writer and photographer were a far cry from those at Abu Ghraib, the US-run prison in Iraq, where some troops are accused of abusing detainees.

But interrogation techniques used here were recommended for Abu Ghraib by the Guantanamo centre’s former commander, Major General Geoffrey Miller, and critics have questioned if that is an indication that abuses happened here, too.

General Miller and other officials have denied that any Guantanamo detainee has been mistreated.

Two of the interrogation sessions watched by AP were at Camp Delta’s normal detention centre. They were viewed from behind mirrored glass and officers turned off the audio feed, which is taped for analysts to cross-check information.

The other session viewed was at Camp 5, where alleged leaders, problem detainees and prisoners believed to have high intelligence value are held. It was the first time that a journalist had been allowed to witness an interrogation there since that jail opened in May.

Detainees in Camp 5 stay in an air-conditioned concrete building in cells closed with metal doors and a strip covering an internal window.

A commander peeled back the tape to give a glimpse. In one cell, a man was curled up asleep, a prosthetic leg lying below his mattress.

Officers said that the primary focus of the prison has always been intelligence gathering. “We’ve learnt about recruiting, how terror cells are financed, their capabilities and plans that have been sitting on the table for attacks,” said the senior interrogator, who, together with others, spoke on condition of anonymity.

The first detainees arrived strapped into a cargo plane 2½ years ago, shackled, bound and blindfolded. Most were captured on the battlefields of Afghanistan, accused of links to the fallen Taleban regime or al-Qaeda.

Ringed by turquoise waters where American troops snorkel, fish and lounge on pontoon boats on days off, this arid outpost on Cuba’s eastern tip has been leased as a US Navy base since 1903.

Officials thought that its remote location on foreign soil would put prisoners outside the reach of US constitutional protections, but the Supreme Court ruled last week that the 595 prisoners from 42 countries have the right to challenge their detentions in American courts.

Most detainees have not yet been told of their newly-won right. Nor were they told about the Abu Ghraib scandal, officials said.

Disputing reports that few detainees retain value as sources of intelligence about terrorist activities, interrogators said that most prisoners have either killed someone or helped in an operational capacity.

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