The Cover-Up of Murders at Guantanamo

This thorough investigative report relies on the several eyewitnesses (turned whistleblowers) who were guards, or worked in some capacity, at the detention center at Guantánamo Bay. Their disclosures point out multiple discrepancies regarding the official versions of the deaths of three detainees being held there in 2006. According to the government, these deaths were suicides by hanging. The disclosures/interviews of individuals working there strongly suggest that the three men died as a result of torture, making the acts homicides, which were then followed by a massive cover-up. Key points of the story/disclosures include:

• According to official documents, the three men bound their own hands, one his own feet, stuffed rags deep into their own throats, began to choke on them, and then hung themselves in their own cells (simultaneously) at Camp Delta (the primary holding area).
• The existence of a secret site, unnamed and unacknowledged officially by military personnel, located one mile north of Camp Delta. This site, according to witnesses, was used by (assumed) CIA operatives to harshly interrogate detainees. The site, was known as “Camp No,” because “the idea being that anyone who asked if it existed would be told, ‘No, it doesn’t.’” A series of screams coming from the direction of the compound was once heard.
• The night of the three deaths, three prisoners were taken, one at a time, to Camp No, hours before the deaths supposedly occurred. A van returned after several hours form Camp No, and then according to the whistleblower and other sources, a large commotion began.
• Other individuals’ accounts suggest that no bodies were brought from Camp Delta to the clinic (where they would go) that night along the walkway, which they would have had to, suggesting the deaths did not occur at Camp Delta, as the official report states.
• The instruction of superiors to guards/staff that the media would be reporting something different then what the guard were being told happened (guards were being told the prisoners choked to death on rags, while the media would be reporting death by hanging). The superior instructed all staff that “It was important … that servicemen make no comments or suggestions that in any way undermined the official report. He reminded the soldiers and sailors that their phone and email communications were being monitored.”
• NCIS investigators may have failed to review key pieces of information, or reference them in their report. Including, alarmingly, the “footage from the camera that continuously monitored activity in the hallways” which would have effectively proven the individuals died in their cells (if they had).
• Marks on the corpses of the deceased indicated severe beatings had occurred.
• The neck organs were removed in each of the prisoners before being released to their families – which would prove death by hanging (if that had occurred).
• The Justice Department’s, under the Obama administration, failure to adequately investigate the case in 2009 (the whistleblower came forward after a new administration was in place).
  

But this summary doesn’t really do the piece justice. Read for yourself the story that may be one of the most important whistleblower disclosures of the year.

Comments

[Tom Tobin]

If this doesn't make you sick from what happened physically, it should make you sick from an ethical viewpoint. This lowers Americans to the level of the Iraqis who put power drills through the heads of others. It makes Americans liars, vigilantes, conspirators, and murderers. What is the level of bravery required to execute a man who cannot defend himself? I wonder how fast our founding fathers are spinning in their graves these days. Perhaps their spins could be harnessed to generate electricity.
GAP is one of the ever-fewer groups keeping the democratic process alive and honest, while making our world a safer place for our kids.