Bisher al-Rawi, a British resident held in Guantanamo Bay for four years, is rapidly losing his sanity, according to three lawyers who have visited him during the past month.
Al-Rawi, 35, who was arrested by the CIA and local security forces during a business trip to Gambia in 2002, is showing clear signs of secure housing unit psychosis, a clinical condition that afflicts high-security prisoners, said Clive Stafford Smith, one of the lawyers.
"I have had several clients on American death rows who have developed it and it's clear to me that he is sliding down that path," Smith said.
"The conditions in which he is being held are worse than any death row I've ever seen," he said.
This week marks the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at Guantanamo, which still has 385 prisoners, despite recent releases. Those who remain were deprived of virtually all legal rights by the US Congress in last year's Military Commissions Act.
Al-Rawi is an Iraqi who fled late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's dictatorship as a child and settled in Britain. Alone of his family, he retained citizenship of Iraq in the hope that one day he would be able to claim the family's abandoned property. He was arrested with his brothers -- one of whom is also in Guantanamo -- and two other men during a trip to set up a peanut processing business. He has never been charged.
Brent Mickum, a US lawyer who also represents him, said al-Rawi was "slowly but surely slipping into madness. Bisher's treatment is designed to achieve a single objective -- to make him lose his mind," he said.
BEIJING FORUM: ‘So-called freedom of navigation advocated by certain countries outside the region challenges the norms of international relations,’ the minister said Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) yesterday denounced “hegemonic logic and acts of bullying” during remarks at a Beijing forum that were full of thinly veiled references to the US. Organizers said that about 1,800 representatives from 100 countries, including political, military and academic leaders, were in Beijing for the Xiangshan Forum. The three-day event comes as China presents itself as a mediator of fraught global issues including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Addressing attendees at the opening ceremony, Dong warned of “new threats and challenges” now facing world peace. “While the themes of the times — peace and development —
BRIBERY ALLEGATIONS: A prosecutor said they considered the risk of Hak-ja Han tampering with evidence to be very high, which led them to seek the warrant South Korean prosecutors yesterday requested an arrest warrant for the leader of the Unification Church, Hak-ja Han, on allegations of bribery linked to the country’s former first lady and incitement to destroy evidence. The move came a day after the 82-year-old was questioned over her alleged role in bribing former first lady Kim Keon-hee and a lawmaker. Founded in 1954 by her late husband, Sun Myung Moon, the Unification Church has long been the subject of controversy and criticism, with its teachings centered on Moon’s role as the “second coming” and its mass weddings. Followers are derisively referred to as “Moonies.” However, the church’s
Decked out with fake crystal chandeliers and velvet sofas, cosmetic surgery clinics in Afghanistan’s capital are a world away from the austerity of Taliban rule, where Botox, lip filler and hair transplants reign. Despite the Taliban authorities’ strict theocratic rule, and prevailing conservatism and poverty in Afghanistan, the 20 or so clinics in Kabul have flourished since the end of decades of war in the country. Foreign doctors, especially from Turkey, travel to Kabul to train Afghans, who equally undertake internships in Istanbul, while equipment is imported from Asia or Europe. In the waiting rooms, the clientele is often well-off and includes men
Venezuela on Saturday organized a day of military training for civilians in response to the US deployment in the Caribbean, and amid new threats from US President Donald Trump. About a month ago, Washington deployed warships to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35 jets sent to Puerto Rico in what it calls an anti-drug and anti-terrorism operation. Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez has accused Washington of waging “undeclared war” in the Caribbean, after US strikes killed over a dozen alleged drug traffickers off his country’s coast. Caracas also accused the US of seeking regime change, and