Three Middle Eastern detainees being held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, committed suicide Saturday morning, military officials said, becoming the first captives to take their own lives at the prison and prompting new calls for an immediate shutdown.
The Defense Department said Saturday the men–two from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen–were found hanged in their cells. By taking their own lives, the prisoners confounded strenuous measures by military officials to prevent suicides. And the deaths occurred as the Bush administration battles growing international criticism of its detention procedures and faces a potentially fateful Supreme Court decision later this month.
The military did not name the prisoners and released few details about the men but said at least two were believed to have been members of international terrorist organizations and the third part of a Taliban uprising.
All three had been on previous hunger strikes and all had been force-fed.
“These are men who had gone on a hunger strike together. The methods of hanging themselves were similar,” said Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris Jr., commander at Guantanamo. “I believe this was a coordinated attempt.”
He called the three “committed jihadists” who died in acts of “asymmetrical warfare”–the term U.S. military officials commonly use to describe the tactics of insurgents who face a militarily superior U.S. force in combat.
Army Gen. John Craddock, the leader of U.S. Southern Command, said the men were not among detainees seeking U.S. court reviews of their cases and had not yet appeared before controversial military trial panels. Craddock insisted that the three, although not accused of any crimes, were enemy combatants and terrorists.
“This is a determined, intelligent and committed element,” he said. “They will continue to do everything they can … to become martyrs in the jihad.”
But as many detainees pass their four-year mark in captivity without formal charges, human-rights activists and defense attorneys said the prisoners have grown despondent over being detained without charges and without imminent prospects of a court hearing.
“People have been indefinitely detained for five years without any prospect of ever going home of ever seeing their families or ever being charged or having any resolution,” said Jumana Musa, an advocacy director for Amnesty International in Washington. “There is no question serious psychological trauma comes from that.”
Previously, military officials said there had been 41 suicide attempts at Guantanamo this year, including three last month by detainees who tried to take their lives by overdosing on hoarded medication. The Pentagon said a single detainee was responsible for at least a dozen of the suicide attempts.
But there have been many other attempts by Guantanamo detainees to hang or otherwise harm themselves since prisoners were sent there beginning in 2002; in 2003, 23 attempted a mass hanging.
Last year, as many as 131 prisoners engaged in hunger strikes, and a similar protest this year involved 89 detainees, prison officials said. There are currently eight detainees on a hunger strike, Harris said.
In all, 759 detainees have been held at Guantanamo. Releases and transfers have brought the number there now to about 460.
Only 10 of those now in custody have been charged with crimes for their alleged involvement in terrorist activity. Meanwhile, recurring allegations of interrogation abuses and the trial system have spurred global condemnation. The United Nations Committee Against Torture called on the Bush administration last month to shut down the prison, and the European Union parliament earlier this year urged that the prison be closed and detainees be given trials without delay.
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United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for shutting down the prison, and top officials in Britain, Germany and elsewhere have expressed concern to U.S. counterparts and called for drastic changes.
President Bush, spending Saturday at Camp David, was told of the suicides at 7:45 a.m. by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Bush expressed concern and pressed to ensure the military was conducting an investigation, said Christie Parell, a White House spokeswoman.
A guard in the prison found the first man hanging from a noose fashioned out of his clothing shortly after midnight on Saturday. The guard called in an emergency medical team. Other guards then found the two other men, also hanging, officials said.
“They worked hard to revive these men who were determined to take their lives,” Harris said.
All three left suicide notes in Arabic, but military officials refused to release any details of the notes.
The military provided few biographical details about the dead prisoners.
Harris said one man was part of a Taliban uprising at the Qala-I-Jangi prison in Afghanistan, where CIA operative Johnny “Mike” Spann was killed in 2001, becoming the first U.S. combat casualty in Afghanistan. Another was a member of Jamat al Tabligh, an Islamic group the military considers a terrorist organization. The other was a “mid- to high-level” Al Qaeda operator, he said.
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Detainees’ nationalities
After releases and transfers, about 460 people are still being held at Guantanamo. Of the 759 people who have been detained 75 percent came from just a few countries. A breakdown:
%% COUNTRY NUMBER OF DETAINEES
Afghanistan 218
Saudi Arabia 136
Yemen 107
Pakistan 65
Algeria 25
China 22
Other 186
Source: AP baiduhai
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