Get the biggest stories sent straight to your inbox Sign up for regular updates and breaking news from WalesOnline Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Welsh relatives of jailed Chelsea Manning have claimed she was tortured by US authorities - using some of the shamed CIA techniques exposed in a damning report made public this week.

They spoke out as calls grow for an inquiry into what the British authorities knew about the extent of the use of barbaric interrogation techniques used by US interrogators.

Welsh relatives of Manning - who attended Tasker Milward school in Pembrokeshire for four years - have told WalesOnline how she was subjected to the humiliation of being stripped naked and kept in solitary confinement.

Manning, who was jailed for 35 years after she leaked secret cables to WikiLeaks, is now facing the grim prospect of seeing in her 27th birthday behind bars.

Her Welsh aunt Sharon Staples, from Haverfordwest, and Wales-born mum Susan Manning have spoken of their love and support for the imprisoned whistleblower.

But they also echoed claims in 2012 by UN special rapporteur Juan Mendez that the cruel treatment suffered by Manning after her arrest amounted to torture.

Speaking to WalesOnline, Manning’s aunt Mrs Staples said: “What really hurt me was the treatment Chelsea received in Quantico two years before the trial: stripped naked, kept in solitary confinement, made to stand in a corner, everything taken away.”

Ms Manning was locked up for up to 23 hours a day over a period of 11 months during solitary confinement, it has been reported.

Mrs Staples added: “Chelsea has been punished for releasing information [to WikiLeaks] , but whatever happened to the people responsible, the people in that helicopter gunship for instance - were they punished? That always plays heavily on my mind.”

The treatment they describe echoes that depicted by the Senate intelligence committee in a 6,700-page report into CIA torture techniques, part of which was published after a long legal battle last week.

That describes how detainees were stripped naked, kept in solitary confinement, dragged around and humiliated.

In many cases, the treatment went further. Prisoners were forced to stand on broken limbs for hours, kept in complete darkness, deprived of sleep for up to 180 hours, sometimes standing, sometimes with their arms shackled above their heads.

The report mentions mock executions, Russian roulette. US agents threatened to slit the throat of a detainee’s mother, sexually abuse another and threatened prisoners’ children.

Chelsea’s mother Susan Manning said: “Chelsea will be 27 years old on 17 December and this will be the fifth birthday she’s spent in prison.

“It breaks my heart to think of her missing out on her freedom, all because she told the truth instead of covering it up. Chelsea was brought up to be truthful.

“When she was small her grandmother lived with us and she always said to the children: ‘If you can’t tell the truth, don’t bother speaking’.”

Welsh Secretary of State Stephen Crabb, who attended the same school as Ms Manning, said: “There can be no justification whatsoever for the use of torture, neither in military nor civilian cases. The concerns raised about Chelsea Manning’s treatment deserve to be addressed.”

Mrs Staples has been able to visit her niece and her US relatives with support from the Manning Family Fund based in Wrexham.

The Fund continues to campaign to raise awareness of Ms Manning’s plight and that of other whistleblowers.

It was set up by longstanding supporters of Ms Manning in Wales and England to help cover the cost of prison visits for her Welsh relatives.

Related:

This year the Fund campaigned for Manning during the NATO Summit in Newport and held a vigil in the family’s home town of Haverfordwest in September.

Its co-founder Genny Bove said: "Chelsea Manning’s leaks included evidence of how illegal CIA renditions and torture were being carried out and covered up with the complicity of many countries.

"Now we have even more graphic and shocking evidence of CIA involvement in torture with this week’s senate report. Chelsea Manning shouldn’t be in prison."

The Prime Minister David Cameron is now facing calls for an inquiry into the Blair government amid claims it was complicit in the torture of British nationals abroad.

The heavily redacted report into CIA torture released by a US senate committee has fuelled suspicions that sections on the UK have been hidden.

One British man named in the report was Binyam Mohammed, who claims MI5 fed his jailers questions and knew he was being tortured.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The government has been clear that it stands firmly against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.

“We do not condone it, nor ask others to do it on our behalf.”