San Juan, Puerto Rico – A Saudi Arabian prisoner died Wednesday at Guantanamo Bay prison, and the U.S. military said he apparently committed suicide. Critics of the detention center said the death showed the level of desperation among prisoners.
Also Wednesday, a Canadian detainee fired his American attorneys, leaving him without defense counsel ahead of his trial, his former U.S. military attorney said. Omar Khadr is still to be arraigned and is one of only three of roughly 380 Guantanamo prisoners to be charged with a crime.
The military did not identify the detainee who died or describe how he died. There are about 80 detainees from Saudi Arabia at Guantanamo.
Guards at the U.S. Naval Base in southeast Cuba found the detainee unresponsive and not breathing in his cell Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. military’s Southern Command said in a statement.
“They tried to save his life, but he was pronounced dead,” said Mario Alvarez, a Miami-based spokesman for the command.
Lawyer Julia Tarver Mason, whose firm represents eight Saudi detainees at Guantanamo, said she has tried without success to learn from the government if the apparent suicide was by one of her clients.
“They are in the care of the United States government, and that should mean that deaths should not occur,” Mason said.
It would be the fourth suicide at Guantanamo since the prison camp opened in January 2002. On June 10 two Saudi detainees and one Yemeni hanged themselves with sheets.Defense attorneys said the death was probably an act of desperation at a prison camp where detainees are denied access to U.S. civilian courts and isolated in their cells for up to 22 hours a day.
“You have 5 1/2 years of desperation there with no legal way out,” said Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. “Sadly, it leads to people being so desperate they take their own lives.”
A cultural adviser was helping the military handle the remains.
The death came as the U.S. military prepared to try Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni, in military tribunals set up by Congress. Their arraignment is scheduled to proceed Monday at Guantanamo as planned, said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman.
