I’d received another couple of whacks with those phone books, I’d have passed out.
After another hour or so, they came back again. When they switched the light on this time, six or seven cops stampeded through the door.
I hadn’t moved, and when they came charging in they knocked me flying out of the chair. I struggled to get up but with my hands cuffed it was difficult.
The police captain stood in front of me and the others circled around. He never said a word. None of them spoke; they just stared at me. Then the captain nodded, and the others grabbed me.
I was terrified. I screamed at them for mercy.
This time, they had small circles cut out of cloth. They held me down and placed the cloth over my eyes and put a blindfold on. They already had me in handcuffs, but now they also tied my hands with cloth. Everything was prepared and they knew exactly what they were doing. They had obviously done this before.
I screamed for help. I prayed for someone to come and stop them. I would have given anything. I begged them to listen. I couldn’t stop crying but they never hesitated once. My pleas for mercy went unheeded.
They sat me cross-legged on the floor. I could tell by the direction of the voices that one cop stood behind me, one on either side, and the captain stood in front with two more.
They then all let go of their grip. I didn’t dare hope they had decided to stop torturing me, but I wasn’t sure what was happening. I can recall a brief moment where nothing happened. I thought they had come to their senses.
I was dazed and in pain. I hoped that was the end of the torture.
Seconds later I felt a metal prod around my groin. Then, they started electrocuting me with what must have been a cattle prod.
The pain caused by the electrocution varied in severity.
It actually depended on how long the police held the prod against my body and the strength of the current, which they were turning up and down.
I screamed out in pain. I hoped that someone would hear me, but no one came.
When you are being tortured, you are overcome by a surreal sense of disbelief. You keep hoping that it will stop but when you realize you are trapped, you begin to cope with the pain. This means that to get the desired effect, your torturer has to administer more and more pain.
None of them had spoken during the torture session. Now, their silence was broken by the Captain who asked me if the prod had hurt.
‘What do you think? Of course it fucking hurt!’ I roared.
They all laughed.
‘No, no, my friend,’ said the voice. ‘That didn’t hurt. But this will.’
They gave me a few more jolts with the cattle prod, only this time they increased the voltage. The pain was unbearable.
A few hours ago I had been sitting in the Captain’s office drinking beer with the officers and being congratulated for catching O’Connor. Now they were torturing me and laughing about it.
They zapped me a couple of times more, then they started to ask me again, ‘Why did you kill your friend? Where did you hide the body? We know you are a killer! Now tell us why!’
I screamed for help. I tried to explain that I hadn’t killed anybody. I’d been fighting with O’Connor’s bodyguard, but he wasn’t dead. He’d run off.
Every time I gave an answer they didn’t like, they electrocuted me with the cattle prod again.
After a while they began targeting the more sensitive parts of my body.
They pulled up my t-shirt and zapped me in the stomach, around the nipples and around the side of my chest. When this didn’t work, they began electrocuting my groin and my testicles.
The electric shock went right through me. Even my teeth hurt. It was unbelievable and unbearable. My muscles contracted every time I was zapped. I could feel the current in every part of my body.
All the time they kept firing questions at me. It went on and on. When they finally stopped, the officer behind me started to massage my shoulders. He told me that I was very