From a nearby cell, Kevin Cornwell heard the unerasable screams of a fellow prisoner being tortured with electrodes by Taliban captors. Though he escaped this fate, Mr Cornwell's own predicament was only marginally less bleak.
For one thing his health was deteriorating rapidly. The 54-year-old humanitarian worker from Middlesbrough was denied access to basic medicine, even after contracting sepsis. He saw daylight just once a month – for 20 minutes.
Every time he was allowed to use the toilet, he was slapped and pushed by guards. And during endless rounds of interrogation, two men wielding metal pipes stood menacingly at the back of the room.