U.S.: 3 Gitmo inmates hanged themselves
(AP)
Updated: 2006-06-11 09:55 Bush, who was spending the weekend at Camp David, expressed "serious concern"
about the incident, White House press secretary Tony Snow said.
His immediate concerns were making sure that an investigation was being
conducted and that the bodies were "treated humanely and with cultural
sensitivity," Snow said.
Meanwhile, the State Department was consulting with the governments of the
home countries of the three prisoners.
Amnesty International said the apparent suicides "are the tragic results of
years of arbitrary and indefinite detention" and said the prison was a blight on
the Bush administration.
"Today's reported suicides of detainees in Guantanamo should serve as a wake
up call to President Bush and his administration that Guantanamo is not just a
public relations problem, but instead an indictment on its deteriorating human
rights record."
Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights said in a telephone
interview from New York that those held at Guantanamo "have this incredible
level of despair that they will never get justice. And now they're gone. And
they died without ever having seen a court."
Olshansky's group represents about 300 Guantanamo detainees. She appealed to
the Bush administration "for immediate action to do the right thing. They should
be taken to court or released. I don't think this country wants the stain of
injustice on it for many years to come."
Pentagon officials said the three men were in Camp 1, the highest maximum
security prison at Guantanamo, and that none of them had tried to commit suicide
before.
That camp was also the location where two detainees
tried to commit suicide in mid-May, when a riot broke out at the facility. The
two men, who took overdoses of an anti-anxiety medication they hoarded, were
found and received medical treatment and were recovering.
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