Obama failed to probe Gitmo deaths, charity says

[sabra]

Source: Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - The Obama administration has failed to properly investigate evidence suggesting suicides by two Saudis and a Yemeni held at Guantanamo Bay in 2006 were "homicides", a UK-based legal charity said on Tuesday.

U.S.

The U.S. military has said the three detainees hanged themselves with clothes and bed sheets in their cells on the night of June 9, 2006. They were the first prisoners to die at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba since Washington began sending suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives there in 2002.

Human rights groups at the time called for an independent public inquiry into the deaths of Salah Ahmed al-Salami, 37, of Yemen, Mani Shaman al-Utaibi, 30, of Saudi Arabia, and Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, 22, also of Saudi Arabia.

The men's families also questioned the possibility that the three, all devout Muslims, had taken their own lives, saying that would be a serious violation of the Islamic faith.

The charity, Reprieve, which represents 33 Guantanamo inmates, said a January 18 article in Harper's Magazine based on accounts by former camp guards contained evidence the three may have been abused by their captors shortly before they died.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60I52Q20100119

[Jefferson23]

1. This morning on Democracy Now, Scott Horton on the subject:

Casting Doubt on US Claims of Suicide, Attorney Scott Horton Reveals 3 Gitmo Prisoners Died After Torture at Secret Site

New evidence has emerged suggesting three Guantánamo prisoners whom the US claims took their own lives in June 2006 died not from suicide, but torture. A six-month investigation by Harper’s Magazine indicates the three prisoners were suffocated and tortured during questioning at a secret black site facility at Guantánamo known as “Camp No.”


The article is based in part on testimony from a former staff sergeant who says the Obama administration has refused to investigate his claims.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/20/casting_doubt_on_us_claims_of

**You'd have to be an idiot to believe this was suicide.

[Generator]

9. So Guantanamo has it's own Guantanamo?

They rendition the prisoners right there. Charming. Unbelievable. The dwarf planet speaks.

[Jefferson23]

11. Sickening beyond belief isn't it?

[CanonRay]

2. He's busy looking forward

Until we deal with this shit, we'll never move on. What the hell is the Justice Dept. doing, anyway?

[Iowa]

4. +1

[lsewpershad]

3. This legal charity

should also file charges with the ICC.

[Arctic Dave]

5. I am trying to remember who the repug asshole who said that these

killed themselves for the PR and to make the US look bad. Anyone remember?

[GliderGuider]

7. The commander of Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris.

From the Harper's article:

As news of the deaths emerged the following day, the camp quickly went into lockdown. The authorities ordered nearly all the reporters at Guantánamo to leave and those en route to turn back. The commander at Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, then declared the deaths “suicides.” In an unusual move, he also used the announcement to attack the dead men. “I believe this was not an act of desperation,” he said, “but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”

[Arctic Dave]

8. Yes, thank you.

[gimama]

10. duncan "2-kinds-o-fruit"hunter?

just a guess..
any time a gitmo situation came up,
he'd spout off some inane, heartless nonsense..
& he sure fit your description ;)

[sattahipdeep]

6. Obama’s gone over to the Dark Side! -JSOC and CIA

White House is facing accusations that it has covered up the possible murder of three prisoners at the US military prison in Guantánamo.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/20/casting_doubt_on_us_claims_of

[Jefferson23]

12. Obama to indefinitely imprison detainees without charges

By Glenn Greenwald
One of the most intense controversies of the Bush years was the administration's indefinite imprisoning of "War on Terror" detainees without charges of any kind. So absolute was the consensus among progressives and Democrats against this policy that a well-worn slogan was invented to object: a "legal black hole." Liberal editorial pages routinely cited the refusal to charge the detainees -- not the interrogation practices there -- in order to brand the camp a "dungeon," a "gulag," a "tropical purgatory," and a "black-hole embarrassment." As late as 2007, Democratic Senators like Pat Leahy, on the floor of the Senate, cited the due-process-free imprisonments to rail against Guantanamo as "a national disgrace, an international embarrassment to us and to our ideals, and a festering threat to our security," as well as "a legal black hole that dishonors our principles." Leahy echoed the Democratic consensus when he said:

Continue Reading

The Administration consistently insists that these detainees pose a threat to the safety of Americans. Vice President Cheney said that the other day. If that is true, there must be credible evidence to support it. If there is such evidence, then they should prosecute these people.

Leahy also insisted that the Constitution assigns the power to regulate detentions to Congress, not the President, and thus cited Bush's refusal to seek Congressional authorization for these detentions as a prime example of Bush's abuse of executive power and shredding of the Constitution.

But all year along, Barack Obama -- even as he called for the closing of Guantanamo -- has been strongly implying that he will retain George Bush's due-process-free system by continuing to imprison detainees without charges of any kind. In his May "civil liberties" speech cynically delivered at the National Archives in front of the U.S. Constitution, Obama announced that he would seek from Congress a law authorizing and governing the President's power to imprison detainees indefinitely and without charges. But in September, the administration announced he changed his mind: rather than seek a law authorizing these detentions, he would instead simply claim that Congress already "implicitly" authorized these powers when it enacted the 2001 AUMF against Al Qaeda -- thereby, as The New York Times put it, "adopting one of the arguments advanced by the Bush administration in years of debates about detention policies."


http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

[EFerrari]

13. This DoJ is covering up three murders. n/t