Muslim chaplain: Gitmo suicides “inevitable”

**sonz** · 06-14-2006

The weekend's suicide of three Guantanamo detainees was almost inevitable and indicates a clear failure by the U.S. army and intelligence community, according to a Muslim former Army chaplain in who served at the U.S. detention facility, seattlepi.com reported.

The United States is under growing domestic and international pressure to shut down Guantanamo after three prisoners, 2 Saudis, 1 Yemeni, hanged themselves with clothing and bed sheets in their cells last Saturday.

U.S. Defense officials said the three inmates left suicide notes, but refused to disclose their content.

In an interview with the Associated Press news agency, former Army Capt. James Yee, who served as a Muslim chaplain in Guantanamo, said that the U.S. military failed to protect the lives of the three prisoners.

"If we give the government and military the benefit of the doubt that these prisoners in Guantanamo yield valuable information, then the loss of these three means the loss of potentially valuable information. That's an intelligence failure,” he added.

Yee’s service at Guantanamo ended when he was arrested in Sept. 2003 and allegedly accused of spying. He was cleared after spending 76 days in solitary confinement. The government dismissed all charges against him in 2004, and he received an honorable discharge in 2005.

Yee, who converted to Islam in 1991, said that suicide watch was top priority for guards at the time he served at Guantanamo.

“They should have visual contact every two or three minutes. That was being done when I was down there because suicides were serious issues back then," he said.

He added that a successful suicide at Guantanamo was almost inevitable.

"When I was there in 2002-2003, the situation was already dire," Yee said. "Here we are now well into the fifth year of detention. It was only a matter of time."

The former Army Captain also said that he wrote the standard operating procedure for Islamic burial rites in 2003 because of the expected death of one Guantanamo detainee who attempted suicide. The inmate later recovered with brain damage after staying in a coma for several months, Yee said.

The procedure called for burying the body in a concrete cover because it was expected the body would eventually be exhumed and returned to the detainee’s home country.

“There has to be a funeral prayer. The body has to be washed properly. It has to be what we call shrouded properly,” Yee said.

"If the prisoner is buried on Guantanamo there's a specific way, in accordance with Islamic law - the face toward Mecca, put into the ground on the deceased's right side, things like that."

International human rights groups, UN watchdogs and many foreign governments have repeatedly slammed the U.S. for holding around 450 prisoners in what they describe as a "legal black hole". But the White House has rejected all calls to shut down the prison.

Earlier this week, the United Nations’ human rights agency said that the Guantanamo suicides were not “completely unexpected” and highlighted the need to close the detention center.

”The focus of attention should be on closing Guantanamo," said Jose Diaz, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The European Parliament also passed a motion on Tuesday that calls on Washington to shut down the detention facility “as quickly as possible.”

**MinAhlilHadeeth** · 06-14-2006

It's disgusting how that idiot in charge said it was an act of warfare!
Ya Allah ease the pain of our brothers, have mercy on them Ya Allah, and forgive them.
W'salaam

**umm_amina04** · 06-14-2006

May Allah SWT make our muslim brother and sisters that are suffering all over the world stronger in iman and give them the strength to fight the pain the kufar are putting them through.... May Allah have mercy on them and put the muslims and their families at ease insha-allah AMEEN........

umm_amina04 Allah slave in the dunya and in the hereafter