On June 9, 2006, three detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba were found dead, supposedly having hanged themselves in their cells.
Before any investigation was undertaken, these deaths were ruled suicides; Rear Admiral Harry Harris, then-commander in charge of the camp, said the men committed acts of “asymmetric warfare” against the U.S., proving the victims were jihadists.
But an article written by Scott Horton for the March issue of Harper’s Magazine suggests that the official account of what happened that night was a lie and the three men were in fact tortured to death.
The article — based on a report released in December written by Mark Denbeaux of the Seton Hall University School of Law, as well as interviews with guards who were on duty that night at the camp — claimed the official accounting of the events that occurred to be unbelievable.
Allegedly, the three detainees plotted to commit suicide simultaneously (even though they had only been in the same cell block for 72 hours), made nooses out of torn bed sheets and bound their hands and feet before shoving rags down their throats, stepping up on their sinks and hanging themselves.
We’re also supposed to believe that the men accomplished all of this without any of the constantly patrolling guards noticing and that they hung unnoticed in their cells for two hours.
However, the guards who spoke to Harper’s — including the chief of security at Camp America, the portion of Guantanamo Naval Base that houses the detention facilities — reported seeing a van transport three prisoners to a secret facility nicknamed “Camp No” hours before the three bodies were supposedly found.
It’s not known for sure, but Camp No is rumored to be a CIA torture site.
When the van returned, it did not transport the prisoners to the cellblocks, but instead backed up to the service entrance of the medical clinic.
The guards also confirmed that, despite being stationed with an unobstructed view of the walkway between the cellblock and medical clinic, they never saw any bodies transported from the cellblock to the clinic.
That night, Col. Michael Bumgarner, the commander of Camp America, told his guards that although the prisoners had died from choking on the rags they had swallowed, the official story they were to tell would be that the prisoners had hanged themselves.
Both the autopsies and the NCIS report failed to mention any possible evidence of torture, including bruising, hemorrhages, needle marks or the rags stuffed down the prisoners’ throats (which is a tactic commonly used during waterboarding).
Each report supported the initial claim that the deaths were jihadists engaging in asymmetric warfare by committing suicide.
Yet the men’s guilt as terrorists and motivation to commit suicide are strongly in question.
Yasser Al-Zahrani was 17 years old when he was turned in to American officials for a bounty. His case had been reviewed, and he was on a list of prisoners to be sent home.
Mani Al-Utaybi had been turned in for a bounty while doing humanitarian work in a tribal region straddling the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan and was due to be sent home in a matter of weeks.
And the only evidence against the third prisoner, Salah Al-Salami, was that he had lived in a boarding house in Pakistan that terrorists were believed to have used at one point.
The same guards who spoke to Harper’s for the article approached the U.S. Justice Department under President Barack Obama’s administration with their concerns, but were unsatisfied with the cursory investigation the Department executed.
The amount of evidence indicating that these prisoners may have been tortured to death warrants a full investigation, yet there is no indication from Obama’s administration that it is willing to do so.
There are more cases, too.
Since the beginning of the War on Terror, more than 100 detainees have died while in U.S. custody.
According to military records, 34 of them are suspected or confirmed homicides, and evidence indicates others were falsely characterized as natural deaths.
The vast majority of those cases has never been investigated; only 12 deaths have resulted in any sort of punishment for any official.
Despite the CIA’s heavy involvement in many of the cases, not one of its agents has faced a criminal charge.
None of these prisoners were ever charged with — or convicted of — any crime, and there is substantial evidence to indicate that many of them were innocent.
Obama’s administration needs to investigate every questionable case, punish those responsible for wrongdoing and ensure such events don’t happen again.
Anything less is a disservice to justice and the ideals America stands for.
David Brooks is a communication senior and may be reached at [email protected]
