The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate response.

Mr. Gao’s case has drawn intense scrutiny from human rights advocates because he said he was tortured when he was detained in 2007, and again for 14 months that ended in March 2010.

During the earlier confinement, he was beaten with electric batons, and burning cigarettes were placed near his eyes, he told people after being released. The second time he was detained, security officers beat him with holstered handguns during one particularly horrific two-day spell, he told The Associated Press last April. Two weeks later, he disappeared again, and he has not been heard from since.

In the interview with a video producer and reporter from The A.P., which was conducted in a Beijing teahouse, Mr. Gao described being moved from one site to another in Beijing, Shaanxi Province and the far western region of Xinjiang. He said he was hooded at various times, tied up with belts, made to sit motionless for up to 16 hours and threatened with death. He said one captor told him in September 2009: “You must forget you’re human. You’re a beast.”

Mr. Gao was detained shortly after his wife, Geng He, fled to the United States by way of Thailand in early 2009. She sought asylum, and now lives in San Francisco with their two children.