U.S.: 3 Gitmo inmates hanged themselves
(AP)
Updated: 2006-06-11 09:55
Three Guantanamo Bay detainees hanged themselves with nooses made of sheets
and clothes, the commander of the detention center said Saturday. They were the
first reported deaths among the hundreds of men held at the base for years
without charge.
A detainee looks into the window of a cell at
Camp 4 inside of the maximum security prison Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay
Naval Base, Thursday, Aug. 26, 2004, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
[AP] |
The suicides, which military officials
said were coordinated, triggered further condemnation of the isolated detention
center, which holds some 460 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaida and the
Taliban. There has been growing international pressure on the U.S. to close the
prison.
Two men from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen were found dead shortly after
midnight Saturday in separate cells, said the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command,
which has jurisdiction over the prison. Attempts were made to revive them, but
they failed.
"They hung themselves with fabricated nooses made out of clothes and bed
sheets," Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris told reporters in a conference call from
the U.S. base in southeastern Cuba.
Gen. John Craddock, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said in the
conference call that the three had left suicide notes, but refused to disclose
the contents.
One of the detainees was a mid- or high-level al-Qaida operative, Harris
said, while another had been captured in Afghanistan and participated in a riot
at a prison there. The third belonged to a splinter group. Their names were not
released.
He said all three had engaged in a hunger strike to
protest their indefinite incarceration and had been force-fed before quitting
the protest action. Military commanders said two were participating in the
hunger strike as recently as last month, and described one of them as a
long-term hunger striker who had begun the protest late last year and ended it
in May.
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