Canberra, Australia ? An Australian terror suspect released from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, says he was beaten, given electric shocks, sexually humiliated and nearly drowned while under U.S. supervision.

Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born former coffee shop owner and father of four, returned to his hometown of Sydney last month after being held for more than three years without charge.

In an interview aired Sunday, Habib told Australia’s Nine Network’s public affairs program “60 Minutes” that he was arrested in Pakistan a few weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and was held as a terror suspect for 40 months.

He said three weeks after his capture, he was transferred to Egypt, where he was tortured daily for six months before he was sent via Afghanistan to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He told the TV program that an interrogator once told him his family had been killed, even though it hadn’t. He also claimed to have been stripped naked and threatened to be placed with a dog he was told was trained to sexually assault humans. The TV program did not say where this alleged treatment took place.

Habib also alleged he was administered drugs and isolated in solitary confinement “to make me crazy.”

“I never see the sun, I never have a shower like a human being, I never have a cup to drink, I never treated like a human being,” he told Nine.

Habib was paid for the interview with the Australian TV program.

In a separate interview published by The New York Times on Sunday, he said interrogators in Egypt kicked him and put cigarettes out on his chest. At Guantanamo, Americans hit his head against the floor, he said, and a female interrogator smeared what appeared to be menstrual blood on his face in an effort to humiliate him.

Because of the torture, Habib said he falsely confessed to training the al-Qaida hijackers who flew airliners into buildings in New York and Washington.

“I make them happy; I want to save myself,” Habib told Nine. “No one should be treated in the way people are treated in Cuba.”

His claims could not be independently verified, but other U.S. terrorism suspects have made similar allegations in the past.

Habib’s release was announced days after court documents were made public detailing claims the U.S. government had transferred him to Egypt so he could be tortured.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, however, said earlier Sunday that he did not believe Washington freed Habib because it was sensitive about the torture claims. “I have no advice to that effect at all,” he told Nine.

Downer said Washington did not charge Habib because it didn’t want to make evidence about his alleged involvement and training with al-Qaida public. He did not elaborate.

Downer also said he believed Habib was transferred to Egypt from Pakistan, although the Egyptians have not acknowledged holding him in their custody. But he said he didn’t believe he transferred because the Middle Eastern country had a reputation for torturing terrorist suspects.

“The reason that I believe that he was sent from Pakistan to Egypt was because the Egyptians regarded him as an Egyptian citizen because he was born in Egypt,” Downer said.

Pakistani Interior Minister Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat told SBS television last year that after Pakistan interrogated Habib, Washington asked that he be sent to Egypt.