Remembering a Death at Guantánamo, Six Years Since I Began Writing About the Prison as an Independent Journalist

It’s 28 Years Since Margaret Thatcher... Pentagon Denies Reports That Two Guan...

Remembering a Death at Guantánamo, Six Years Since I Began Writing About the Prison as an Independent Journalist

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Six years ago, on May 31, 2007, I posted the first article here in what has become, I believe, the most sustained and comprehensive analysis of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo that is available anywhere — and for which, I’m gratified to note, I was recently short-listed for this year’s Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. In these six years, I have written — or cross-posted, with commentary — nearly 2,000 articles, and over 1,400 of these are about Guantánamo.

I had no idea it would turn out like this when I began writing articles about Guantánamo six years ago. I had just completed the manuscript for my book The Guantánamo Files, which consumed the previous 14 months of my life, and which was published four months later, in September 2007.

I was wondering how to follow up on the fact that I had lived and breathed Guantánamo almost every waking hour over that 14-month period, as I distilled 8,000 pages of US government allegations and tribunal and review board transcripts, as well as media reports from 2001 to 2007, into a book that attempted, for the first time, to work out who the men held at Guantánamo were, to explain where and when they were seized, and also to explain why, objectively, it appeared that very few of them had any involvement whatsoever with international terrorism.

As I was wondering how to proceed, I received some shocking news. A Saudi at Guantánamo, a man named Abdul Rahman al-Amri, had died, reportedly by committing suicide. I knew this man’s story and decided to approach the Guardian, explaining who I was and why I felt qualified to comment, but when I was told that they weren’t interested, and would be getting the story from the Associated Press, I realized that the WordPress blog that my neighbour Josh had set up for me, initially to promote my books, provided me with the perfect opportunity to self-publish articles, and to see what would happen.

That first article is here, and I’m cross-posting it below, as a reminder of where it all began, as well as to remember Abdul Rahman al-Amri, and the eight other men who have died at Guantánamo. Two days after, I published a follow-up article, also cross-posted below, and I published reminders of his death on the 1st anniversary in 2008 (“The forgotten anniversary of a Guantánamo suicide“), on the 2nd anniversary in 2009, and on the 3rd anniversary in 2010.

There have long been profound doubts expressed about most of the alleged suicides at Guantánamo — and particularly of the three men who died in June 2006, Abdul Rahman al-Amri Al-Amri in 2007, and Mohammed al-Hanashi in June 2009. The supposed “triple suicide” in June 2006 was the subject of an excellent report by Scott Horton in Harper’s Magazine in January 2010, based, in particular, on the testimony of Staff Sgt. Joe Hickman, who disputed the authorities’ story (and also see my articles here and here, and my discussion of Erling Borgen’s film “Death in Camp Delta”). There had also been doubts about al-Hanashi’s death (see here, here and here), but little had been done regarding al-Amri’s death until my friend and colleague Jeff Kaye wrote an article in February 2012, based on their autopsy reports, which I cross-posted, with my own commentary, as “Were Two Prisoners Killed at Guantánamo in 2007 and 2009?”

I hope you have time to read the articles below, in memory of Abdul Rahman al-Amri, whose death — and subsequent demonization by the US authorities — started my career as a full-time journalist and activist on Guantánamo. Many of the themes I touched upon back then — dealing with inadequate information masquerading as evidence — are still, I’m sad to note, relevant today, providing another compelling reason for Guantánamo to be closed, and for nothing like it to be attempted again. For a detailed analysis of his story, see the first entry in this article I wrote last May, as part of my ongoing project to analyze the classified military files relating to the prisoners in Guantánamo, which were released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and on which I worked as a media partner.

Suicide at Guantánamo: the story of Abdul Rahman al-Amri

By Andy Worthington, May 31, 2007

According to the Associated Press, the Saudi citizen who apparently committed suicide at Guantánamo on Wednesday 30 May has been identified by the Saudi authorities as Abdul Rahman al-Amri. Described by the Pentagon as a 34-year old from Ta’if, born on 17 April 1973, al-Amri had been held in the maximum security Camp V, reserved for the “least compliant and most ‘high-value’ inmates”, according to a US military spokesman.

Whether or not this is a valid description of al-Amri is debatable. He did not take part in any of the tribunals at Guantánamo –- either the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT), convened to assess the status of the prisoners as “enemy combatants”, or the annual Administrative Review Boards (ARB), convened to assess whether the prisoners still constitute a threat to the US and its interests. He did, however, prepare a statement for his CSRT in which he “admitted it was his duty to fight jihad and that he continues to admit to that today. He says it is all Muslims’ responsibility to fight for jihad when called upon by a Muslim government (in this case, and at that time, it was the Taliban)”.

Having served in the Saudi army for nine years, al-Amri apparently travelled to Afghanistan in September 2001, undertook military training at a “school for jihad” in Kandahar and then moved on to the front lines. In December 2001, he passed through the Tora Bora region, crossed the border into Pakistan, and surrendered to the Pakistani police. He was one of approximately 180 Guantánamo prisoners handed over to the US authorities after being detained by the Pakistani authorities during a one-week period in mid-December 2001. Dozens of these men were either humanitarian aid workers or religious teachers, and most of the rest were, like al-Amri, Taliban foot soldiers recruited to fight the Northern Alliance in an inter-Muslim civil war that began long before 9/11. In his statement, al-Amri pointed out that “Americans trained him during periods of his service” with the Saudi army, and insisted that, “had his desire been to fight and kill Americans, he could have done that while he was side by side with them in Saudi Arabia. His intent was to go and fight for a cause that he believed in as a Muslim toward jihad, not to go and fight against the Americans”.

He also refuted the most serious allegation against him: that he “was identified as the person responsible for providing a movie that provided all the details on how the USS Cole was attacked [in 2000] and the explosives that were used”. He admitted that he used the alias Abu Anas whilst in Afghanistan, but explained that he believed that another individual with the same name had been responsible for providing the film. This would not be surprising. Countless prisoners have refuted a variety of allegations based on claims relating to their supposed aliases, and it’s probable — given al-Amri’s stated role as nothing more than a foot soldier against the Northern Alliance — that he was no exception.

Watch the press for the Pentagon’s response to his death, however. Whilst it’s probable that there’ll be more subtlety on display than last June, when the prison’s commander, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, described the suicides of three prisoners as “an act of asymmetric warfare”, it’s likely that someone in the administration will step forward to declare that the USS Cole allegation “proves” that al-Amri — held for nearly five and a half years without charge, without trial, and without access to a lawyer or to members of his family — was an al-Qaeda operative. What will probably not be mentioned is that, according to a report by the imprisoned al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj, al-Amri, like the three prisoners who apparently committed suicide last year, had been on hunger strike for several months.

Even in death, it seems, there is no escape from the vengeance of the Pentagon.

Suicide at Guantánamo: a response to the US military’s allegations that Abdul Rahman al-Amri was a member of al-Qaeda

By Andy Worthington, June 2, 2007

More on the apparent suicide of the Saudi prisoner Abdul Rahman al-Amri duly surfaced yesterday. As well as taking part in a hunger strike before his death, it transpires, from a source cited by Arab News, that he had been a hunger striker during the mass hunger strike in 2005, and that, at the time of his death, he was suffering from hepatitis and stomach problems. Where, one wonders, was the much-vaunted medical care for “enemy combatants,” which, in 2005, Brigadier General Jay Hood, the commander of the Joint Task Force in Guantánamo, declared was “as good as or better than anything we would offer our own soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines”? The answer, as so many other Guantánamo prisoners have noted, is almost certainly that medical care is refused to prisoners who fail to cooperate with the authorities, and that, as one of the “least compliant” prisoners, al-Amri would have received little, if any medical care.

As I warned two days ago, the US authorities have also launched a propaganda campaign portraying al-Amri as a dangerous member of al-Qaeda. In a statement reported by Agence France Presse, US Southern Command claimed, “During his time as a foreign fighter in Afghanistan, he became a mid-level al-Qaeda operative with direct ties to higher-level members including meeting with Osama bin Laden. His associations included (bin Laden’s) bodyguards and al-Qaeda recruiters. He also ran al-Qaeda safe houses.” Quite how it was possible for al-Amri, who arrived in Afghanistan in September 2001, to become a “mid-level al-Qaeda operative” who “ran al-Qaeda safe houses” in the three months before his capture in December has not been explained, and nor is it likely that an explanation will be forthcoming. Far more probable is that these allegations were made by other prisoners –- either in Guantánamo, where bribery and coercion have both been used extensively, or in the CIA’s secret prisons. In both, prisoners were regularly shown a “family album” of Guantánamo prisoners, and were encouraged –- either through violence or the promise of better treatment –- to come up with allegations against those shown in the photos, which, however spurious, were subsequently treated as “evidence.”

As with so many Guantánamo prisoners, the contradictory allegations against al-Amri beggar belief. By his own admission, he traveled to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance, having served in the Saudi army for nine years and four months. US Southern Command expanded on his activities as a Taliban recruit, claiming that, “by his own account,” he “volunteered to fight with local Taliban commander Mullah Abdul al-Hanan, and fought on the front lines north of Kabul”, and that he subsequently “fought US forces in November 2001 in the Tora Bora Mountains.” This may or may not be true, but it is at least within the realms of plausibility. Claiming that he ran al-Qaeda safe houses, on the other hand, is simply absurd, and should alert all sensible commentators to scrutinize with care the allegations made by the US authorities against the majority of those held in Guantánamo without charge or trial (I’ve studied all of them, and allegations that are either groundless or contradictory are shockingly prevalent).

If we are to believe this callous attempt to blacken the name of a man who, having apparently taken his life in desperation, appears to have made the mistake of traveling to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban at the wrong time, one question in particular needs answering: when, during the three months that al-Amri stayed in a guest house in Kabul, trained at a “school for jihad” in Kandahar, fought on the front lines, retreated to Tora Bora and crossed into Pakistan, was he supposed to have located the al-Qaeda safe houses that he was accused of running?

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here – or here for the US).