Three detainees kill themselves at Guantanamo

MIAMI, June 11: Three Arabs hanged themselves with clothes and bedsheets, the first prisoners to die at Guantanamo base since the United States began holding terrorism suspects there in 2002, US officials said.

The military said guards at the camp in Cuba found the two Saudis and one Yemeni not breathing in their cells shortly after yesterday midnight and attempts to resuscitate them failed.

The deaths threw a fresh spotlight on the camp, which has drawn strong criticism internationally and undermined support for the US war on terrorism that was launched after the September 11 attacks.

Guantanamo holds about 460 foreigners captured mainly in Afghanistan where the United States have fought the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Amnesty International urged again that the camp be closed, joining a chorus of criticism from human rights groups.

US officials said there was no indication the Guantanamo suicides were a reaction to Wednesday's killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, in a US air raid.

Prison camp commander Navy Rear Adm Harry Harris said the suicides were acts of ''asymmetrical warfare'' and linked to a ''mystical'' belief at the camp that it would take the deaths of three detainees for the rest to go free.

The US military said the bodies were being treated ''with the utmost respect.'' The three detainees had taken part previously in extended hunger strikes and been force-fed. They all left suicide notes but no details were made public.

Facing indefinite detention, with none of the rights afforded formal prisoners of war or criminal suspects in the US justice system, dozens of the detainees have undertaken hunger strikes and attempted suicide.

The military said 23 inmates have attempted suicide a total of 41 times, 29 of the times by hanging, since the camp opened in January 2002.

''ENTIRELY PREDICTABLE''

''Sadly, suicides like these are entirely predictable when people are held outside the law with no end in sight,'' said Ken Roth, head of Human Rights Watch in New York.

US President George W Bush, his popularity eroded by the war in Iraq, expressed ''serious concern.'' US officials immediately called allies, the United Nations and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Bush of the deaths at 7:45 am.

William Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which defends some Guantanamo prisoners, said the deaths ''are the latest result of the policies of this administration which seek to deny justice, fairness and due process to these men.'' The International Committee of the Red Cross said it would visit the camp next week and that it had been concerned that the prisoners' uncertainty about their fate and their inadequate legal status could affect their state of mind.

''We have long said that this adds to the mental strain,'' said ICRC spokesman Vincent Lusser in Geneva.

Adm Harris called the suicides an act of war.

''They are smart. They are creative, they are committed. They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us,'' he told reporters.

Bush has said he would like to empty the camp, which the Pentagon says has detainees from 40 countries and the West Bank, with the largest number from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen.

The US Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on the legitimacy of special military tribunals set up to try some of the prisoners for war crimes. Ten detainees face hearings before the tribunals.

REUTERS