The United States Department of Defense (DOD) had stopped reporting Guantanamo suicide attempts in 2002. In mid-2002 the DoD changed the way they classified suicide attempts, and enumerated them under other acts of "self-injurious behavior".
On January 24, 2005 the U.S. military revealed that in 2003, there were 350 incidents of "self-harm."[1] 120 of those incidents of self-harm were attempts by detainees to hang themselves. Twenty-three detainees participated in a mass-suicide attempt from August 18 to 26, 2003.[1] A number of incidents happened after a change in command at the camp in 2003 increased the severity of interrogation techniques used by military and CIA intelligence officers.[1]
On June 10, 2006, the DOD announced that three prisoners held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps had committed suicide. The June 10, 2006 suicides were the first inmate deaths at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp.[2] The DoD acknowledged there had been a total of 41 suicide attempts among 29 detainees until that date.[2] Since June 2006, DOD has announced three suicide deaths by detainees at Guantanamo. In 2008, the NCIS released a heavily redacted report of its investigation of the three suicides at Guantanamo in 2006.
In reports published in 2009 and 2010, Seton Hall University Law School's Center for Policy and Research and a joint investigation by Harper's magazine and NBC News, respectively, strongly criticized the government's account of the 2006 suicides. Harper's 2010 article, based on accounts by four former Guantanamo guards, asserted that DOD had initiated a cover-up of deaths resulting from torture during interrogation. The DOD has denied these allegations.
Fourth suicide, May 30, 2007
The Southern Command announced on the evening of May 30, 2007 that a Saudi prisoner had died of suicide.[32][33] They announced: "The detainee was found unresponsive and not breathing in his cell by guards." The DoD did not immediately release the dead man's identity. The DoD asserted that his body would be treated with cultural sensitivity.
The statement closed with the following:[32][33]
"The mission of detention and interrogation at Guantanamo continues. This mission is vital to the security of our nation and our allies and is being carried out professionally and humanely by the men and women of Joint Task Force Guantanamo."
On May 31, 2007 Saudi officials announced that the dead man was Abdul Rahman Maadha al-Amry.[34] The Associated Press reported that same day that al-Amry had been identified as one of the "high-value detainees", held in Camp 5.[35][36] Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald reported his name as Abdul Rahman Ma Ath Thafir Al Amri and that he was a military veteran of the Saudi army.[37] He had never been allowed to meet with an attorney.[37]
Other newspaper reports commented on the timing of the death, pointing out that it was almost a year after the three deaths of June 10, 2006. They noted that both incidents followed a new commander being assigned to JTF-GTMO. In addition, the deaths had occurred before the convening of a military commission to judge detainees' cases.[38][39]
Fifth suicide June 1, 2009
Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al Hanashi, a 31-year-old prisoner from Yemen, died in the camps on June 1, 2009. On June 2, 2009 the DOD reported that he committed suicide.[40] [41] A number of journalists were at the camp to cover a military commission for Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who is the youngest detainee and the last western citizen to be held there. (Note: He was returned to Canada in 2012 after a plea bargain, to continue serving his sentence.) The camp authorities did not allow journalists to report news of Al Hanashi's death until after they had left Guantanamo.[41]
Sixth suicide May 18, 2011
DOD announced that Inayatullah, 37, an Afghan detainee held since 2007 on suspicion of being a member of Al Qaeda, was found dead on May 18, an apparent suicide.[42] The press reported that his given name is Hajji Nassim, according to his attorney.[43] He was referred to as Inayatullah only at the Guantanamo camp. He was arrested in Iran near the border with Afghanistan, and was classified by DOD as an "indefinite detainee."[43]
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