Saudi Gitmo Inmate Found Dead - SO WHAT

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Saudi Gitmo Inmate Found Dead

Samir Al-Saadi, Arab News
http://arabnews. com/?page= 4§ion=0&article=96910&d=1&m=6&y=2007

JEDDAH, 1 June 2007 — A Saudi detainee died after an apparent suicide at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on Wednesday, the US military said yesterday. The military did not say how the prisoner died nor release his name. “The detainee was found unresponsive and not breathing in his cell by guards. The detainee was pronounced dead by a physician after all lifesaving measures had been exhausted,” the US Southern Command in Miami said in a statement.

Sources here identified the detainee as Abdul Rahman ibn Muada ibn Dhafir Al-Amri, a 34-year-old Saudi resident from Khamis Mushayt. Al-Amri was also known as “Abu Anas Al-Nigery” and was one of the 40 detainees who went on a hunger strike in 2005, said a source close to the case who asked not to be identified. The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) called for an independent and neutral inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Al-Amri’s death.

Arab News learned that the detainee was suffering from a number of illnesses and had a very weak constitution. The source told the paper that Al-Amri “had stomach problems in addition to hepatitis and epigastria.” The detainee was reportedly held in solitary confinement at the controversial offshore US Naval Base prison where so-called enemy combatants of the US war on terror are incarcerated.

Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, spokesman of the Interior Ministry, said Al-Amri’s relatives have been informed and measures taken to bring his body home.Al-Amri is the fourth detainee to commit suicide at the detention camp that currently holds about 380 foreign terrorist suspects in Cuba. Three other prisoners — Saudi nationals Yasser Al-Zahrani, 21, and Manie Al-Otaibi, 26, and Yemeni national Ali Ahmed, 26 — allegedly hanged themselves with clothing and bedding in their cells on June 10, 2006. Their deaths are still under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Kateb Al-Shamari, a Saudi lawyer representing some of the detainees, told Arab News that US authorities had ignored the plea from a Saudi forensic team to join the investigation. Al-Shamari said that Saudi forensic experts believed that parts of the throats had been removed. “It’s been a year now and we still have not received any word from them,” Al-Shamari told Arab News. “We also asked for the time of death and video footage of their cells, which were under surveillance by video cameras.” He also said that Saudi families have complained about not receiving letters from detainees.

Interior Minister Prince Naif said recently that the Kingdom was following up the cases of Saudi detainees in Guantanamo. He said discussions were still under way with the US government and that efforts would not cease “until every Saudi detainee has returned home.”

In February the Kingdom received seven detainees, the seventh group to arrive in the country. Sources said that another group of detainees should be released sometime this month. According to the Interior Ministry, all previously released detainees have been tried according to the laws of the Kingdom and released. The number of Saudi detainees still at Guantanamo Bay is 68 out of the original number of 130.

In Washington, Amnesty International advocacy director Jumana Musa said news of another suicide at the detention camp was not surprising “when you look at the conditions that people are in; so many people are in isolation so many people held without any kind of certainty.”

“It’s a really extreme result of what’s a really extreme situation,” she said. “I don’t know how many more indications need to be there that Guantanamo is not a good idea.” The latest death comes eight days after a new commander took over the military task force that runs the controversial detention center. Rear Adm. Mark Buzby took command of the prison camp last week, replacing Rear Adm. Harry Harris, who was new to the job when the previous suicides took place.

The United States has faced persistent criticism over its indefinite detention at Guantanamo of men it considers “unlawful enemy combatants” not entitled to the protections granted to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions, the US Constitution and the US military code. The Bush administration created a new category of prisoner, called “enemy combatant”, as a way to skirt legal protections provided to prisoners of war and criminal defendants.

US authorities said that the prison is needed to prevent dangerous Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters from returning to the battlefield, and to extract information that could help prevent future attacks. The US also sends detainees to third countries so that their imprisonment can be concealed and authorities in those countries can use interrogation methods that would be under more scrutiny if they took place under US custody. The US authorities have sent back 120 detainees to their home countries on various dates; 380 detainees still remain at the camp.

“In the last year, the conditions at Guantanamo have become even more bleak: The military has increasingly held people in solitary confinement and continued to refuse to allow independent psychological evaluations. The United States government is responsible for this man’s death and must be held accountable,” Wells Dixon, staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, said in a statement.

— Additional input from Raid Qusti and agencies

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