Legal Commentary

Guantanamo Detainee Deaths: Suicides or Homicides?

By Jeralyn

Via the Associated Press, a new article by Scott Horton in Harper's Magazine reports new, and if true, explosive findings on the deaths of the three Guantanamo detainees who allegedly committed suicide in their cells in 2006. Horton alleges the deaths may have been homicides.

Three Guantanamo Bay detainees whose deaths were ruled a suicide in 2006 apparently had been transported from their cells hours before their deaths to a secret site on the island, an article in Harper's magazine asserts.

...Harper's reported that the deaths of the three detainees, or the events that led directly to their deaths, most likely occurred at a previously undisclosed facility a mile or so from the main Guantanamo Bay prison complex.

[More...]

The three detainees are Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, 37, of Yemen; Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, 30, and Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, 22, both of Saudi Arabia.

The article says that at a 7 a.m. meeting on June 10, 2006 with 50 or so soldiers and sailors, Army Col. Michael Bumgarner said that the three men had died by swallowing rags, causing them to choke to death. Bumgarner was a commander at Guantanamo Bay.

According to the magazine, Bumgarner went on to say that the news media would be guided to report something different — that the three prisoners had committed suicide by hanging themselves in their cells.

Bumgarner, in an e-mail to the AP, denies the allegations in Harper's.

In December, Seton Hall University School of Law’s Center for Policy & Research released a new report on the Guantanamo suicides. You can read the full report, Death in Camp Delta, here (pdf). My summary is here. The report noted the inadequacies of the investigation of the deaths and said:

Both the time and exact manner of the deaths remain uncertain, and the presence of rags stuffed in the detainees‘ throats is unexplained.

The report concluded:

“An investigation was promised. The promised investigation was a cover up. Worse still, given the gross inadequacy of the investigation the more compelling questions are: Who knew of the cover up? Who approved of the cover up, and why? The government’s investigation is slipshod, and its conclusion leaves the most important questions about this tragedy unanswered.”

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 18, 2010 (boomark / email).