RIYADH, 2 June 2007 — Refusing to accept suicide as the cause of the death of the Saudi detainee Abdul Rahman ibn Muada ibn Dhafir Al-Amri, relatives of the deceased demanded a transparent inquiry into the cause of his death.
Abdul Rahman was found dead by guards in his cell at the Guantanamo prison on Wednesday morning. Prison authorities said it was suicide.
“We cannot believe that Abdul Rahman committed suicide as we know that he is a man of strong religious conviction,” Muhammad Al-Amri, brother of the dead detainee, told the Arabic daily Al-Watan. “He was in great spirits and enjoyed good health.”
The AP cited US military documents yesterday that said Al-Amri’s weight had dropped to 90 pounds, down from 150 pounds when he was interned at the offshore prison. A military spokesman said Al-Amri was not on hunger strike at the time of his death but that he had been force-fed through a nasal tube in the past.
The family of the deceased detainee received a call of condolences from Prince Muhammad ibn Naif, assistant interior minister for security affairs, after they received the news, said Muhammad.
According to a statement of the US Southern Command, a guard found Abdul Rahman unconscious and not breathing and attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.
The formalities related to the dispatch of the dead body have not been completed. The body is expected to reach the Kingdom at the earliest possible time and the burial would most likely be at his hometown Khamis Mushayt in the southern Asir province .
Muhammad said his brother was a soldier of corporal rank in the Saudi armed forces. He had intermediate school education and lived with his father’s large family until he left for Tabuk after joining the army.
In a transcript of a testimony provided by Abdul Rahman last year, the detainee claimed to have been in the Saudi Army for nine years and four months. He said he went to Afghanistan in 2000 to join the Taleban because he believed in helping an Islamic government.
“Detainee said had his desire been to fight and kill Americans, he could have done that while he was side by side with them (militants) in Saudi Arabia,” the transcript obtained by AP through the US Freedom of Information Act said. “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.”
Abdul Rahman said he fought in the battle of Tora Bora in the months after 9/11 and was arrested in Pakistan and taken to Guantanamo in February 2002.
“Shortly before the terror attack on 9/11 he quit the army,” said Muhammad. “We did not hear from him until he called us on the eve of the American attack in Afghanistan in September 2001 saying that he was still in Afghanistan, and after several months we learned that he was one of the early prisoners sent from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay. He was 27 at the time.”
Regarding his affinity to any extremist ideology Muhammad said: “We never had a reason to link him with extremist ideologies as he never gave any hint of it until we received his call from Afghanistan.”
After he was taken to Guantanamo the family received very few letters. The brother said that he believed the last letter the family received was not in Abdul Rahman’s handwriting.
Abdullah Al-Joaid, a member of the Saudi government committee that monitors the condition of Saudi nationals being held in Guantanamo, currently estimated at 68, also ruled out the suicide theory. He based his belief on comments made by one former detainee, whose identity was not divulged, that said Abdul Rahman was not in a psychological condition that would have indicated a desire to commit suicide.
Retired Brig. Talal Al-Zahrani, whose son Yasser was reported to have committed suicide at Guantanamo last June, said he believes the suicides were murders.
Abdul Rahman’s relatives demanded a speedy delivery of the dead body, and the father of the deceased is reportedly so upset he has been unwilling to talk to the press.
Abdul Rahman had been held in one of two maximum-security buildings at Guantanamo where detainees live in one-man cells with long narrow windows, concrete walls and built-in slabs topped with mattresses, a US military spokesman said. Media reports say the military considered Abdul Rahman a valuable intelligence asset.
Human rights groups have long condemned the United States for holding prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo, as well as sending terror suspects to third-party countries known to torture prisoners, a process known as “extraordinary rendition.”
On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of three Arab men against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan Inc. for providing flight and logistical support to the Central Intelligence Agency for “the forced disappearance, torture and inhumane treatment” of the three plaintiffs. This is the first time a blue chip company in the United States has been accused of helping the US government violate human rights.
The ACLU and other groups cited Wednesday’s death as a sign that captives were being driven to despair by isolation and sensory deprivation in the maximum-security camps and uncertainty over their fates. “This is inconsistent with American values and must stop immediately,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU.
— With input from agencies
