A former prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay says he was never interrogated about the reason the US said they'd arrested him for -- even after seven years in captivity.

The former detainee, Lakhdar Boumediene, is now in France with his family. 

Boumediene said the interrogations began within one week of his arrival at the facility in Cuba. But he thought that his cooperation, and trust in the United States, would serve him well and quicken his release.

"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 replied.

"Boumediene described being pulled up from under his arms while sitting in a chair with his legs shackled, stretching him," an ABC News interview account Monday reported. "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?" he quipped. "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?'"

Boumediene was first captured and accused of being part of a plot to bomb the US embassy in Sarajevo. But charges against him were dropped by the Bosnian government. Subsequently, however, they turned him over to the US military.

"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.'"

"Every day, I think about my wife and my daughters," he said.

Vice President Cheney is running around and visiting each and every television and radio station that he likes talking how his and Bush's administration never tortured prisoners.  Perhaps one of these media outlets, (maybe ABC and Jake Tapper, Karen Travers and Stephanie Z. Smith since they interviewed Boumediene) should ask for an interview with VP Cheney sitting across from Mr Boumediene?  Now that would be a show to watch.  Heck, they may as well add Cheney's daughter too since she's out there defending her dad's actions during the past either years.