Washington - The apparent suicide of a Yemeni detainee at
the Guantanamo Bay prison on Cuba was under investigation, the US
military announced Tuesday.
Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih, 31, was found 'unresponsive and not
breathing' during a routine check late Monday evening, the Joint Task
Force-Guantanamo said in a statement on the US Southern Command
website.
The prisoner, also known as al-Hanashi, has been held at
Guantanamo since February 2002.
When he was found, medical personnel rushed to the scene and tried
to resuscitate him. The military called the death an 'apparent
suicide.'
An autopsy is to be performed as part of a probe by Navy
investigators, after which al-Hanashi's remains are to be repatriated
to Yemen in a 'culturally sensitive and religiously appropriate
manner,' the military said.
Al-Hanashi is charged with travelling to Afghanistan in 2001 to
participate in jihad, and had admitted to fighting alongside the
Taliban, according to the statement. The military said he had also
lived in al-Qaeda guest houses before his capture at Mazar-e-Sharif
following the uprising there.
The death appeared to be the fifth suicide in the controversial
seven-year-long history of the Guantanamo prison, where at one time
up to 800 prisoners were being held. Only a few have been charged
with crimes, while disputed military tribunals have proceeded in fits
and starts.
There are currently 245 prisoners remaining in Guantanamo. US
President Barack Obama has declared he intends to close the facility
by January 2010, but is running into a complex set of legal and
political problems. Foreign countries are dragging their feet at
Obama's request to take in prisoners even as US politicians resist
the suggestion that some may end up in their own backyards.
USA
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