WASHINGTON (AP) – Abu Zubaydah, alleged to be a former senior Al Qaeda operative for Afghanistan, denied before a military hearing that he was a member of the terrorist organization or an associate of leader Osama bin Laden.

Mr. Zubaydah, captured in 2002, also told the hearing at Guantanamo Bay that he had been tortured in American custody and confessed to things he did not do just to stop the abuse, according to a Pentagon transcript released Monday.

Mr. Zubaydah appeared before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal, an administrative hearing, at Guantanamo Bay on March 27, as one of 14 “high value” detainees transferred there last September after being held at secret CIA prisons abroad. The public and reporters are not permitted access to the hearings; of the 13 hearings held so far, the Defense Department has now released 12 transcripts.

Mr. Zubaydah, a Palestinian Arab, said that from 1994 to about 2000 he was a facilitator at guest houses in Pakistan, where he helped Muslims get to the Afghanistan’s Khalden training camp for “defensive jihad” – that is to fight against forces that invade Muslim lands anywhere. He then helped send the trained militants on to Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere, he said.

“The statement that I was an associate of Osama bin Laden is false,” the transcript quotes Mr. Zubaydah as saying. “I’m not his partner and I’m not a member of Al Qaeda.”

“Bin Laden wanted Al Qaeda to have control of Khalden, but we refused since we had different ideas,” Mr. Zubaydah said.