RIYADH/JEDDAH, 6 June 2007 — Relatives of Abdul Rahman Al-Amri, a Saudi detainee whose body arrived in the capital from Guantanamo Bay on Monday afternoon, are refusing to accept the idea that he committed suicide in the notorious prison after examining his body. “We did not find any marks on his body which would hint that he committed suicide,” said Muhammad Al-Amri, the deceased’s brother.
As of yet no Saudi official has issued a statement regarding the state of the body based on observations by experts qualified to make such assessments. Spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, said that a special medical committee would do an autopsy and then prepare a report that will be sent to US authorities on any particular inquires.
The brother of the deceased along with other family members arrived in the capital yesterday to identify the body at a morgue in Al-Shumaisi government hospital.
The US military had announced last week that Al-Amri was found dead in his prison cell. Al-Amri is the fourth detainee to commit suicide at the detention camp that currently holds about 380 foreign terror suspects in Cuba. Three other prisoners — Saudi nationals Yasser Al-Zahrani, 21, and Manie Al-Otaibi, 26, and Yemeni national Ali Ahmed, 26 — allegedly hung themselves with clothing and bedding in their cells on June 10, 2006. Their deaths are still under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The 34-year-old Saudi resident from Khamis Mushayt was one of the 40 detainees who went on a hunger strike in 2005. Arab News learned that the detainee was suffering from a number of illnesses and had a very weak constitution.
According to Kateb Al-Shammari, a lawyer representing some of the Saudi detainees in Guantanamo Bay, US authorities have ignored previous inquires about circumstances surrounding the death of Yasser Al-Zahrani and Manei Al-Otaibi, two other Saudi detainees the US military said committed suicide last year.
Inquires were made regarding missing throat parts from their bodies, which had been repatriated to the Kingdom. Saudis also requested the time of death and videotape footage from the cameras in or around their cells. All the requests have been ignored since they had been sent over a year ago.
Commenting on the report of a military court throwing out the charges against two Guantanamo detainees on Monday, Saudi human rights activist and lawyer Khaled Abu Rashid said that the verdict corroborated the international demand by public rights and diplomatic the world over to release the detainees and the shutting down of the prison. Abu Rashid said: “The camp is the 21st century version of the Nazi concentration camps.”
Zubair Ahmad, a Sudanese legal adviser working in Jeddah, said though the detainees have spent more than five years in the Guantanamo Bay prison, the United States could not prove that they were involved in any criminal activity. He cited the case of Al Jazeera photographer Sami Al-Haj who was arrested and thrown into the camp in total violation of the rights of journalist to photograph war scenes.
