A 19 year old American detainee who was arrested in Kuwait two weeks ago complained that he was beaten during an interrogation over his alleged participation in a Yemeni terror cell. The New York Times on Wednesday reported that Gulet Mohamed, an American citizen born in Somalia, was beaten with sticks and threatened with electric shocks, and was threatened that his mother would be thrown in prison if he did not answer their questions about why he traveled to Yemen and Somalia in 2009.

Mohamed was on a U.S. no-fly list, and had been living as a foreign resident in Kuwait. He said that he had been arrested when he tried to renew his Kuwaiti visa last month.