Three Guantanamo Bay detainees whose deaths were ruled a suicide in 2006 apparently had been transported from their cells hours before their deaths to a secret site on the island, an article in Harper’s magazine said.
The published account released on Monday raises serious questions about whether the three detainees actually died by hanging themselves in their cells and suggests the US government is covering up details of what precisely happened in the hours before the deaths on the night of June 9, 2006.
In response to the report, the US Justice Department said on Monday that it had thoroughly reviewed the allegations and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Harper’s reported that the deaths of the three detainees, or the events that led directly to their deaths, most likely occurred at a previously undisclosed facility not fat from the main Guantanamo Bay prison complex.
Harper’s based much of its account on interviews with several prison guards, who said they knew of the existence of the “black” site and that they saw three detainees removed from Camp Delta several hours before the deaths were reported and said the prisoners were transported in a white van toward the secret site.
Those who knew of the black facility referred to it as “Camp No,” reported the magazine, quoting Army Sergeant Joe Hickman, one of the guards.
Anyone who asked if the black site existed would be told, “No, it doesn’t,” the magazine reported, quoting Hickman.
The article will be published in the magazine’s March issue.
After the terror attacks on US soil on Sept. 11, 2001, the CIA set up a number of so-called “black” sites around the world, where harsh interrogations of terrorism-era suspects took place. The Harper’s article suggested such a site at Guantanamo Bay may have belonged to the CIA or to the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command.
The three Guantanamo detainees were Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, 37, of Yemen; Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, 30, and Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, 22, both of Saudi Arabia.
The article says that at a 7am meeting on June 10, 2006, with 50 or so soldiers and sailors, Army Colonel Michael Bumgarner said that the three men had died by swallowing rags, causing them to choke to death. Bumgarner was a commander at Guantanamo Bay.
According to the magazine, Bumgarner went on to say that the news media would be guided to report something different — that the three prisoners had committed suicide by hanging themselves in their cells.
On Monday, in response to the article, Bumgarner said in an e-mail that “this blatant misrepresentation of the truth infuriates me.”
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