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The Daily Dish - 2006-2011 archives for The Daily Dish, featuring Andrew Sullivan

A "Suicide" At Gitmo

By The Daily Dish
Jun 12 2009, 3:55 AM ET

The death of one inmate, Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al Hanashi, by alleged suicide this month in Gitmo is looking fishier. The AP is understandably skeptical of the official story:

Almost five months before he was found dead at Guantanamo Bay, a detainee volunteered to represent prisoners in talks with the military and left his jailhouse for a meeting with the detention camp's most senior commanders. But he never returned - from then on, he was held in the prison's psychiatric ward, a former detainee recalled...The U.S. military has refused to say how Saleh allegedly killed himself in the closely watched psychiatric ward. But the former detainee, Binyam Mohamed, said it wasn't like him to commit suicide. "He was patient and encouraged others to be the same," Mohamed said. "He never viewed suicide as a means to end his despair."

What happens in that psychiatric ward? Force-feeding is what happens:



Mohamed, himself force-fed while at Guantanamo, described the experience of being strapped into a "restraint chair" and being fed liquid nutrients through a tube. He remembers one of the nurses as sympathetic.

"While the ... hard tube is forced through your nostril down to your stomach your eyes swell with tears and run down your cheeks," Mohamed wrote. "It's always comforting to hear the nurse say 'Oh don't worry. it's okay that happens to everyone' and wipe off your tears for you. And as the tube goes through the throat, you get the sensation of choking."

Saleh was a long-term hunger striker, but the military said he resumed eating in May.

This is still happening under Obama.

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