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Guantanamo detainees hang themselves

The Guantanamo Bay prison camp for "war on terror" suspects faced renewed scrutiny and criticism yesterday after three inmates hanged themselves.

The triple suicide on Saturday represents a new challenge for US President George W. Bush's administration, which is under increasing pressure to close the camp from critics that include the UN, international human rights organizations, European governments and Britain's top legal adviser.

The deaths were the first successful suicide bids after repeated attempts by inmates in the camp, located on a US naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba.

Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the camp's commander, described the suicides as an act of warfare.

"They are smart, they are creative, they are committed," he said of the prisoners. "They have no regard to life, neither ours nor their own. And I believe this was not an act of desperation, rather an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us."

The first victim was found early on Saturday by an "alert" prison guard who had noticed "something out of the ordinary" in the cell, Harris said in a telephone press conference.

"When it was apparent that the detainee had hung himself, the guard force and medical teams reacted quickly to attempt to save the detainee's life," Harris said.

Two other inmates were also found hanging in their cells after guards checked on other prisoners, he said. They had used clothes and sheets to hang themselves, he said

Medical teams tried to save all three -- a Yemeni and two Saudis -- but they were pronounced dead "after all life-saving measures were exhausted," he said.

There have been 41 suicide attempts by about 25 detainees but in the previous cases, US medical personnel were able to save them, according to the Washington Post.

Lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights, an advocacy group based in New York which represents some 200 inmates and helps private attorneys representing other inmates, were saddened but not surprised about the suicides.

"These deaths reflect the desperation for a basic human need -- a need for justice, a need to have someone hear what they have to say," said the Center's legal director, William Goodman.

Katherine Newell Bierman, a counterterrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch, said the suicide attempts would likely continue if the US did not move to give the detainees a fair trial.

Saudi authorities yesterday released the names of its two dead nationals, and said it had set in motion procedures to repatriate the bodies. The official SPA news agency identified the dead as Maniy bin Shaman al-Otaibi and Yasser Talal al-Zahrani.

Saudis make up almost 25 percent of the estimated 400 security suspects held in Guantanamo.
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