Eleven guards at a federal jail in Brooklyn are facing allegations that they beat up two inmates and later attempted to cover up the abuse, federal prosecutors say. In one instance, several guards hung a noose in a victim’s cell to make the inmate’s injuries appear to be the result of a suicide attempt, prosecutors say.

The two inmates were not identified yesterday, but the indictment says the abuse began in November 2002. By that point, the jail, the Metropolitan Detention Center, was no longer being used to hold men arrested on suspicion of terrorism threats after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Since being deported, a group of those detainees have been claiming that they were assaulted and threatened by the guards at the jail.

The abuse allegations detailed yesterday began around the same time Justice Department investigators were investigating allegations of assaults by the September 11 detainees.

“This really underscores my clients’ complaint that the abuse they suffered was systemic, not just a few officers doing bad things,” a lawyer for the September 11 detainees, Rachel Meeropol, told The New York Sun yesterday. Ms. Meeropol said yesterday’s charges would not have a “direct impact” on her case.

Three of the guards who were arraigned yesterday are also named as defendants in a lawsuit brought by the September 11 detainees. One of those guards, Captain Savatore Lopresti, is a senior officer at the jail, located on 29th Street.

In U.S. District Court in Brooklyn yesterday, Mr. Lopresti pleaded not guilty to charges that he violated the civil rights of two inmates. He is one of eight guards who were arraigned yesterday.

In November 2002, prosecutors say, the criminal abuse began after an inmate ignored an order by Mr. Lopresti to remove a T-shirt tied around his head. Several guards, including Mr. Lopresti, went to the inmate’s cell and beat him to the point that “clumps of the inmate’s dreadlocks” were left on the floor beside a pool of blood, according to court papers filed by prosecutors. The guards then allegedly used the inmate’s bedsheet to construct a noose, which they hung from the window bars, according to the court papers. The guards then filed incident reports saying that the injuries to the inmate occurred during a fight after the guards had tried to prevent the inmate from committing suicide.

In another allegation, several officers are accused of stomping on a second inmate in a jailhouse elevator in 2006. Finally, Mr. Lopresti is accused of illegally writing letters authorizing his subordinates to carry concealed guns off-duty.

Neither victim is identified in the court papers.

The charges against the officers range from violating the civil rights of the inmates to lying to investigators.