Yemeni family disputes Guantanamo son suicide

Sanaa, June 14 : The family of a Yemeni man US officials said killed himself at the military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay denied today his death was a suicide, saying he had been murdered.

''This idea of suicide is a lie. My son wouldn't commit suicide. My son was among those who memorised the Koran and was committed to his religion,'' said Ali Abdullah, father of a Yemeni detainee found dead at the US prison on June 10.

''He was assassinated by American soldiers and I call on the Yemeni and American governments for an international investigation,'' he told Al Jazeera television.

The US military has identified the Yemeni who died at Guantanamo as Ali Abdullah Ahmed but the Al Jazeera interview identified the father by that name and the son as Salah Ali.

The US military said two Saudis and a Yemeni hanged themselves with clothes and bedsheets in their cells, the first prisoners to die at the base in Cuba since Washington began sending suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives there in 2002.

The deaths renewed criticism of the base, which many human rights groups and some governments say should be closed. Nearly all the prisoners at Guantanamo are being held without charge and some have been detained for more than three years.

There have been many previous suicide attempts at Guantanamo, where the US military holds 460 foreigners captured mainly in Afghanistan during the US-led war there to oust the Taliban and al Qaeda after the September 11 attacks.

Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry identified the two Saudis as Manei al-Otaibi and Yasser al-Zahrani but gave no further details. Pentagon documents show Zahrani was 21, meaning he was sent to Guantanamo as a teenager.

US officials described all three as ''dangerous enemy combatants''.

US military medical examiners have finished autopsies of the prisoners, a military spokesman said on Monday.

Once laboratory results are analysed, pathologists will send a report to the medical examiner, who will determine the official cause of death, said Navy Cmdr. Robert Durand, a spokesman for the camp.

The bodies were still in a hospital morgue at Guantanamo and the US State Department is negotiating with the governments of Saudi Arabia and Yemen to determine whether they would be repatriated or buried on the naval base, Durand said.

Abdullah told Al Jazeera he wanted his son's body returned home and an autopsy performed.

Reuters

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