Guantánamo Inmate Found Dead

Apparent suicide at US jail in Cuba follows triple hanging last June

Taken from The Guardian, UK, May 31, 2007
Peter Walker and agencies

A Saudi detainee at Guantánamo Bay has been found dead in a suspected suicide, authorities at the US prison camp said today.

"The detainee was found unresponsive and not breathing in his cell by guards," the military said in a statement.

The statement described the death as "apparent suicide", but did not identify the prisoner or say exactly how he died. He was pronounced dead "after all lifesaving measures had been exhausted", it added.

The military said the man had been held in the highest security part of the base, Camp 5, which is reserved for the least cooperative or most "high value" inmates.

Prisoners in the area are kept in individual, solid-walled cells and are allowed outside for only two hours of recreation in an enclosed area each day.

Wells Dixon, a lawyer who met Camp 5 detainees last month said many showed signs of desperation. "I can assure you that it is hell on earth," he said. "You can see the despair on the faces of detainees. It's transparent."

If the death is confirmed as suicide it would be the fourth at the base, on the south-eastern tip, of Cuba since it opened in January 2002. In June last year, two Saudi detainees and one Yemeni man were found hanged with bed sheets.

Critics of the prison said the latest death showed the mental state of many Guantánamo detainees, some of whom have been there for more than five years with no release or trial in sight.

"You have five and a half years of desperation there with no legal way out," Michael Ratner, the head of the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, said. "Sadly, it leads to people being so desperate they take their own lives."

Marc Falkoff, part of a team of lawyers representing 17 detainees, said suicides could only be expected.

"We've said all along that these guys are going to try to take their lives, and that appears to be what happened here," he said. "It's just incredibly sad, and it wouldn't happen if these guys were just given their day in court."

Around 80 of the 380 or so prisoners at the prison are Saudi nationals. Lawyer Julia Tarver Mason, whose firm represents eight prisoners, said she had tried without success to find out from the US government whether the dead man was one of her clients.

The death came despite increased efforts by US authorities to avoid repeats of the triple suicide - which is still being investigated - with measures including taking away sheets during the day.

At the time, the then commander of Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, described it as "not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us".

The US has faced persistent criticism from rights groups and governments - including growing protests from Britain - for deeming Guantánamo prisoners "unlawful enemy combatants", meaning they are not granted rights under the Geneva conventions.

A few prisoners are being brought before military tribunals, which have also been condemned as deeply flawed and unfair. The tribunals were established by Congress after the US supreme court rejected a previous military trial system as unconstitutional.

The first prisoner tried was the so-called "Australian Taliban", David Hicks, who returned to his home country this month after being given a seven-year jail sentence. He is expected to be freed within seven months.

Two more prisoners, Yemeni nationals Omar Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, are due to appear before a tribunal on Monday.