Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Elderly, children and mentally ill incarcerated in Gitmo
From The Hindu
The “Guantanamo files,” a list of over 700 secret documents on the controversial offshore prison of the United States, has lifted the veil on how the so-called “enemy combatants” held there were in many cases “senile old men,” children, and sometimes mentally ill.
According to the files, published by the Guardian newspaper of the United Kingdom and several others, a 2002 assessment of the prison’s oldest detainee, Mohammed Sadiq, (then 89), “revealed dementia, depression and sickness.” Further Sadiq was said to have a major depressive disorder, senile dementia and osteoarthritis, for which he was receiving prescribed treatment; he was also being assessed for prostate cancer.
Similarly the memos outline the case of Canadian Omar Khadr, who was 15 years of age when captured and was still in Guantanamo nearly nine years on. In a particularly telling video of footage from an interrogation of Khadr (available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iTjk6Irbr8Q) he is shown breaking down in tears before the official questioning him.
More than one case of mentally ill prisoners was also evident in the memos, and often these inmates were held for extended periods despite being only of marginal or negligible interest from an intelligence-gathering perspective.
One memo on a Saudi inmate, Mishal Awad Sayaf Alhabiri, reads, “Approximately one year ago [he] attempted suicide by hanging. This resulted in significant brain injury due to lack of oxygen. He has been hospitalised since that time and has unpredictable emotions and behaviour. He also has a history of a head injury from a motor vehicle accident at age 18.”
Another outlines the case of Yasser Talal Zahrani, “one of three prisoners who killed themselves on 10 June 2006, [and] was noted to be of low intelligence value with ‘unremarkable’ exposure to jihadist elements.”
The “Guantanamo files,” a list of over 700 secret documents on the controversial offshore prison of the United States, has lifted the veil on how the so-called “enemy combatants” held there were in many cases “senile old men,” children, and sometimes mentally ill.
According to the files, published by the Guardian newspaper of the United Kingdom and several others, a 2002 assessment of the prison’s oldest detainee, Mohammed Sadiq, (then 89), “revealed dementia, depression and sickness.” Further Sadiq was said to have a major depressive disorder, senile dementia and osteoarthritis, for which he was receiving prescribed treatment; he was also being assessed for prostate cancer.
Similarly the memos outline the case of Canadian Omar Khadr, who was 15 years of age when captured and was still in Guantanamo nearly nine years on. In a particularly telling video of footage from an interrogation of Khadr (available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iTjk6Irbr8Q) he is shown breaking down in tears before the official questioning him.
More than one case of mentally ill prisoners was also evident in the memos, and often these inmates were held for extended periods despite being only of marginal or negligible interest from an intelligence-gathering perspective.
One memo on a Saudi inmate, Mishal Awad Sayaf Alhabiri, reads, “Approximately one year ago [he] attempted suicide by hanging. This resulted in significant brain injury due to lack of oxygen. He has been hospitalised since that time and has unpredictable emotions and behaviour. He also has a history of a head injury from a motor vehicle accident at age 18.”
Another outlines the case of Yasser Talal Zahrani, “one of three prisoners who killed themselves on 10 June 2006, [and] was noted to be of low intelligence value with ‘unremarkable’ exposure to jihadist elements.”
Labels: Guantanamo Bay detainees, U.S. diplomatic cables, Wikileaks
ISI clubbed with terror groups: Wiki-Gitmo files
From The Hindu
The Pakistani spy agency, the Inter-Service Intelligence, was considered by the United States to be on par with terror groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban, according to a slew of “secret” government documents on detainees in the Guantanamo Bay prison.
According to the documents, released on Sunday by newspapers such as the Guardian, “U.S. authorities describe the main Pakistani intelligence service as a terrorist organisation.” Analysts’ notes based on the interrogation of the detainees list numerous examples of the ISI “supporting, co-ordinating and protecting insurgents fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan, or even assisting al-Qaeda.”
One case, backed up by files published publicly by the Guardian, relates to “veteran militant” Harun Shirzad al-Afghani, who was said to have attended a meeting in August 2006 at which Pakistani military and intelligence officials joined senior figures in the Taliban, al-Qaida, the Lashkar-e-Taiba as well.
According to the official memo, the meeting that al-Afghani attended was to discuss operations in Afghanistan against coalition forces and it ended with a decision by the insurgent factions “to increase terrorist operations in the Kapisa, Kunar, Laghman and Nangarhar provinces [of Afghanistan], including suicide bombings, mines, and assassinations.”
The Guardian further published another Guantanamo Bay prison official file on a “high-profile Afghan religious and political leader,” which made reference to ISI operations in the eastern province of Kunar during 2002. According to the memo in question those operations were “designed to destabilise the new Afghan government under Hamid Karzai, who had been installed as interim President by the U.S.-led coalition.”
The memo reportedly said, “In January 2002 ISI financed the activities of several factions … in Kunar… in order to destabilise the Afghan [government]. In March 2002 [the ISI] reportedly provided $12,000… to finance military operations against the new government.”
While the revelations outlined in the Guantanamo Bay prison files are likely to further weaken the rocky relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan, some of the memos also suggested that “rogue elements” within the ISI sometimes acted without the official sanction of the Pakistani state.
In particular one memo describes how “rogue factions from the ISI have routinely pursued private interests and acted against the stated policy of the government of Pakistan,” and these elements have also “had sympathies for and provided support to anti-coalition militia.”
Yet the memos also show the U.S.-Pakistan relationship to be a double-edged sword, especially as they supply evidence showing “extensive” U.S.-ISI collaboration in intelligence gathering. Specifically the memos suggest that many of those transferred to Guantánamo Bay, including senior al-Qaida figures such as Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, “were arrested with Pakistani help or turned over to American authorities by Pakistani intelligence services.”
The cache of files on Guantanamo Bay prison were said to have been provided to European newspapers by the New York Times. The NYT, however, did not confirm that it had obtained the 759 "detainee assessment" dossiers written between 2002 and 2009 from WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website.
WikiLeaks has been the primary source of a vast collection of government documents, including some pertaining to U.S. military engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan and others relating to confidential cables of the U.S. State Department.
The Pakistani spy agency, the Inter-Service Intelligence, was considered by the United States to be on par with terror groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban, according to a slew of “secret” government documents on detainees in the Guantanamo Bay prison.
According to the documents, released on Sunday by newspapers such as the Guardian, “U.S. authorities describe the main Pakistani intelligence service as a terrorist organisation.” Analysts’ notes based on the interrogation of the detainees list numerous examples of the ISI “supporting, co-ordinating and protecting insurgents fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan, or even assisting al-Qaeda.”
One case, backed up by files published publicly by the Guardian, relates to “veteran militant” Harun Shirzad al-Afghani, who was said to have attended a meeting in August 2006 at which Pakistani military and intelligence officials joined senior figures in the Taliban, al-Qaida, the Lashkar-e-Taiba as well.
According to the official memo, the meeting that al-Afghani attended was to discuss operations in Afghanistan against coalition forces and it ended with a decision by the insurgent factions “to increase terrorist operations in the Kapisa, Kunar, Laghman and Nangarhar provinces [of Afghanistan], including suicide bombings, mines, and assassinations.”
The Guardian further published another Guantanamo Bay prison official file on a “high-profile Afghan religious and political leader,” which made reference to ISI operations in the eastern province of Kunar during 2002. According to the memo in question those operations were “designed to destabilise the new Afghan government under Hamid Karzai, who had been installed as interim President by the U.S.-led coalition.”
The memo reportedly said, “In January 2002 ISI financed the activities of several factions … in Kunar… in order to destabilise the Afghan [government]. In March 2002 [the ISI] reportedly provided $12,000… to finance military operations against the new government.”
While the revelations outlined in the Guantanamo Bay prison files are likely to further weaken the rocky relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan, some of the memos also suggested that “rogue elements” within the ISI sometimes acted without the official sanction of the Pakistani state.
In particular one memo describes how “rogue factions from the ISI have routinely pursued private interests and acted against the stated policy of the government of Pakistan,” and these elements have also “had sympathies for and provided support to anti-coalition militia.”
Yet the memos also show the U.S.-Pakistan relationship to be a double-edged sword, especially as they supply evidence showing “extensive” U.S.-ISI collaboration in intelligence gathering. Specifically the memos suggest that many of those transferred to Guantánamo Bay, including senior al-Qaida figures such as Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, “were arrested with Pakistani help or turned over to American authorities by Pakistani intelligence services.”
The cache of files on Guantanamo Bay prison were said to have been provided to European newspapers by the New York Times. The NYT, however, did not confirm that it had obtained the 759 "detainee assessment" dossiers written between 2002 and 2009 from WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website.
WikiLeaks has been the primary source of a vast collection of government documents, including some pertaining to U.S. military engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan and others relating to confidential cables of the U.S. State Department.
Labels: Guantanamo Bay detainees, U.S. diplomatic cables, US-Pak relations, Wikileaks
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