LONDON (AFP) - A British businessman of Iraqi origin claimed in an interview published Saturday he had been illegally held in Africa by U.S. intelligence agents and threatened with torture because he was suspected of terrorist activities.

In an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper, Wahab al-Rawi said he had eventually been released but his brother, an Iraqi national, and a Jordanian friend had been transferred to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Rawi was arrested on November 8 2002 in the west African state of Gambia while on business there. His brother Bisher and a Jordanian political refugee living in Britain, Jamil al-Banna, were detained the same day.

According to Rawi, he was questioned by agents from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), one of them named Lee. He said Lee told him: "You're under U.S. protection or you'd be beaten up by the Gambians. You know how Africans are, you know what happens in these countries. We can let the Gambians at you." He told the newspaper that he was refused access to a lawyer and when he asked to see the British High Commissioner (ambassador) he was told: "Why do you keep asking for the high commissioner? The British asked us to arrest you."

The three men were transferred, handcuffed and hooded, to the Gambian capital Banjul and kept in isolation in a house. The lights were kept on all the time and the noise of a fan outside their door made communication with neighboring cells impossible, according to the report.

Rawi claimed efforts were made to stop them from sleeping and for three days he did not sleep.

"The toilet was a bucket kept in the room, there was no exercise, and a shower was allowed just once a week," he said.

"I said to them, they can't intimidate me, I lived through my father's experience when he was held and tortured by Saddam Hussein. I told them, in Iraq they don't threaten, they do things, they rape people, they torture. "The little American said: 'We can be just as ruthless as Saddam Hussein' - he was trying very hard to scare me. They were threatening me with rape and assault."

Rawi said he thought he had come to the attention of the Americans because of his links with the British-based Muslim cleric Abu Qatada, arrested by British police in October 2002 and held since in a high-security prison.

Abu Qatada is suspected of having contacts with leading international extremists and in particular with the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.