Prisoners with makeshift weapons battled guards trying to save a detainee
pretending to commit suicide at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in what
military officials said Friday was a coordinated attack that left six prisoners
injured.
A U.S. Army soldier
stands guard on a tower at maximum security prison Camp Delta at
Guantanamo Naval Base Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004, in this file photo
reviewed by U.S. military officials.[AP] |
Word of
the injuries comes as a U.N. panel pressed the United States to close
Guantanamo, saying the indefinite detention of terror suspects violates the ban
on torture.
"This illustrates to me the dangerous nature of the men we have detained
here," the detention center's commanding officer, Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris,
told reporters in a teleconference, describing Thursday's attack.
The clash, which took place the same day two detainees attempted suicide
elsewhere in the camp, was among the most violent incidents reported at the
isolated detention center, where the U.S. holds about 460 men suspected of links
to al-Qaida or the Taliban. Defense lawyers said the suicide attempts reflect
increasing despair among detainees, most of whom have been held for more than
four years without charges.
"Under these circumstances, it's hardly surprising that people become
desperate and hopeless enough to attempt suicide," said Joshua Colangelo-Bryan,
an attorney for a detainee from Bahrain who has repeatedly tried to kill
himself.
The most recent turmoil at the detention center perched above the Caribbean
on a
U.S. Navy base in southeastern Cuba began Thursday morning when a
detainee who failed to show up for morning prayers was found unconscious in his
cell, Harris said.
Tests indicated he had taken an overdose of drugs similar to the anti-anxiety
drug Xanax. He was hospitalized in serious but stable condition.
Early in the afternoon, guards searching the prison for contraband
prescription medicine found another detainee "frothing at the mouth" from an
overdose of drugs. He was also hospitalized in stable condition, the admiral
said.
In the early evening, guards spotted a detainee in Camp Four — a medium
security, communal-living unit for the "most compliant" prisoners — appearing to
get ready to hang himself with a bed sheet in the room he shared with nine
detainees.
The apparent suicide attempt "was a ruse to get the guards to enter the
compound," Harris said.
The detainees had made the floor slippery with feces, urine and soapy water
and attacked 10 members of Guantanamo's quick-reaction force with fan blades,
pieces of metal and broken light fixtures, Harris said.
