3 Guantanamo detainees commited suicide in 2006?

[Kuya]

Apparently not. A Seton Hall University investigation had previously cast doubts on the suicide claims made by the government, and this is Scott Horton talking about these claims:

SCOTT HORTON: Is the Naval Criminal Investigation Service—we were able to see how they had concluded the suicides occurred. And they state that these three prisoners bound their feet, bound their hands with cloth, stuffed cloth down their throats, in some cases, at least, put masks over their faces to hold the cloth in place, fashioned mannequins of themselves to put in their beds to deceive the guards, put up cloth to obstruct the view of cameras, fashioned a noose which they attached at the top of an eight-foot wire wall, stepped up as their hands and feet are bound and they’re gagging on cloth, stepped up on top of a wash basin, put their head through the noose, tightened it, and jumped off—and moreover, that these prisoners, in non-adjacent cells, did all of these things absolutely simultaneously, in a clockwork-like fashion. So the story is just simply incredible and simply not believable, I should stress.

The allegations being made against the government is that these three men who were slated to be released were tortured to death and the government hid the truth, stone walled investigation, and claimed that they killed themselves. This is Rear Admiral Harry Harris's comment where he asserts the claim that the detainees killed themselves:

REAR ADMIRAL HARRY HARRIS: …smart. They are creative. They are committed. They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but rather an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us.

Also troubling, is the amount of cover ups that went on in regards to this:

ANJALI KAMAT: Scott, we just have a minute left. Talk about the role of the Justice Department in the cover-up and where the Obama administration is on this. What’s happened over the past year?

SCOTT HORTON: Well, maybe that’s the most distressing single element other than the deaths themselves. The Justice Department is intimately involved in covering up these crimes from the first days after they occur. FBI is deployed to intimidate people not to speak about what’s going on. Justice Department is then filing papers with federal judges in which it makes apparently false statements about everything that went on here. And then when the Obama administration is notified about this, they engage in a further cover-up, claiming to conduct an investigation, but we know from the course of it that they concluded that they would not open a criminal investigation before they even contacted the critical witnesses here. Cover-up after cover-up...

According to Scott Horton, this was the status of the three detainees:

ANJALI KAMAT: And these three men were about to be released? They were slated for release?

SCOTT HORTON: All three of them—

ANJALI KAMAT: Ten seconds.

SCOTT HORTON: Yes. It had been concluded that none of them were al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters. And in fact, the Bush administration had decided to release all three of them.

Scott Horton's article can be found in Harper's Magazine, here, and a video of Scott Horton speaking with Keith Olbermann can be found here.

[Kuya]

This part in the article seems to be particularly shocking:

8. “The Removal of the Neck Organs”
Military pathologists connected with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology arranged immediate autopsies of the three dead prisoners, without securing the permission of the men’s families. The identities and findings of the pathologists remain shrouded in extraordinary secrecy, but the timing of the autopsies suggests that medical personnel stationed at Guantánamo may have undertaken the procedure without waiting for the arrival of an experienced medical examiner from the United States. Each of the heavily redacted autopsy reports states unequivocally that “the manner of death is suicide” and, more specifically, that the prisoner died of “hanging.” Each of the reports describes ligatures that were found wrapped around the prisoner’s neck, as well as circumferential dried abrasion furrows imprinted with the very fine weave pattern of the ligature fabric and forming an inverted “V” on the back of the head. This condition, the anonymous pathologists state, is consistent with that of a hanging victim.

The pathologists place the time of death “at least a couple of hours” before the bodies were discovered, which would be sometime before 10:30 p.m. on June 9. Additionally, the autopsy of Al-Salami states that his hyoid bone was broken, a phenomenon usually associated with manual strangulation, not hanging.

The report asserts that the hyoid was broken “during the removal of the neck organs.” An odd admission, given that these are the very body parts—the larynx, the hyoid bone, and the thyroid cartilage—that would have been essential to determining whether death occurred from hanging, from strangulation, or from choking. These parts remained missing when the men’s families finally received their bodies.

All the families requested independent autopsies. The Saudi prisoners were examined by Saeed Al-Ghamdy, a pathologist based in Saudi Arabia. Al-Salami, from Yemen, was inspected by Patrice Mangin, a pathologist based in Switzerland. Both pathologists noted the removal of the structure that would have been the natural focus of the autopsy: the throat. Both pathologists contacted the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, requesting the missing body parts and more information about the previous autopsies. The institute did not respond to their requests or queries. (It also did not respond to a series of calls I placed requesting information and comment.)

I would really suggest reading Horton's article, it's very detailed (and long). I will probably post some parts later.

[Beckwin]

the horrible part is at this point, none of this is particularly shocking or surprising.

[Howard Roark]

I would really suggest reading Horton's article, it's very detailed (and long). I will probably post some parts later.

gonna post the throat they couldnt find?

[Kuya]

How did you know i was in on this coverup?

[Howard Roark]

in mexican Guantanamo means Puerto Rico

[Plow]

bound their feet, bound their hands with cloth, stuffed cloth down their throats, in some cases, at least, put masks over their faces to hold the cloth in place, fashioned mannequins of themselves to put in their beds to deceive the guards, put up cloth to obstruct the view of cameras, fashioned a noose which they attached at the top of an eight-foot wire wall, stepped up as their hands and feet are bound and they’re gagging on cloth, stepped up on top of a wash basin, put their head through the noose, tightened it, and jumped off—and moreover, that these prisoners, in non-adjacent cells, did all of these things absolutely simultaneously, in a clockwork-like fashion.

…smart. They are creative. They are committed. They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but rather an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us.

those cheeky terrorist bastards

[Demosthenes11]

they are not covered under US law or geneva convention rules.
we have the god given right to butcher their asses if we want

[Kuya]

To think that these men were likely innocent. This is just becoming a very familiar story at this point.

[Demosthenes11]

To think that these men were likely innocent. This is just becoming a very familiar story at this point.

obviously they were terrorists, why else would they be there?

[Acturus]

REAR ADMIRAL

*snicker*

[tonyg]

*snicker*

I thought exactly the same thing... silly armyboys and their gay titles

[Xno Kappa]

I thought exactly the same thing... silly armyboys and their gay titles

Whoa whoa whoa! Let's get ONE thing straight here. This is a Navy rank. The same Navy that uses rank names like Seaman. Just wanted to point that out.