UPDATE: Autopsy Report Ready
Jason Leopold tells the heartbreaking but inspiring story of one man's resistance to the torment of his captors
The detainee who died at the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was a Yemeni man who had been ordered freed in 2010 by a Federal District Court judge but remained in captivity after the ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit last year...
Statement of Lawyers Representing Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif?September 11, 2012:
Adnan Latif's death in US custody at Guantánamo is a tragedy. It
could have been avoided.
Adnan spent more than ten years in Guantánamo -- nearly a third
of his life -- but, like most Guantánamo detainees, he was never charged with a
crime or accused of violating any law.
Adnan was slightly built and gentle, a husband and a father. He
was a talented poet, and devoutly religious. The Administration cleared him for
transfer back in 2009, but he was a Yemeni, and the Obama Administration will
not send Yemenis home -- even if, like Adnan, they have been cleared for
transfer by a unanimous decision of all responsible agencies after a
comprehensive review of the evidence.
Because Adnan was from Yemen, he remained imprisoned for three
more years after being cleared -- not for anything he supposedly did, but simply
because of where he came from.
More tragic ironies abound. In 2010, a federal judge ruled that
he should be released, but a divided appeals court overturned that ruling in a
widely criticized decision a year later. Three months ago, the Supreme Court
declined to restore the ruling, and instead let his case go back to district
court for a new hearing that, sadly, will now never occur.
Amnesty International was about to launch a new worldwide
campaign on his behalf.
Adnan consistently denied the government's claims and maintained
his innocence. He said that he was in Afghanistan when the United States began
bombing in October 2001 because he was seeking free medical treatment for
injuries he had suffered in a car accident as a teenager.
Fleeing Afghanistan, Adnan was captured and brought to Guantánamo,
and held on claims that he was part of the Taliban. He was among the first
detainees to arrive in January 2002. The military and the Administration
cleared him for transfer, yet fought in court to keep him imprisoned.
Adnan endured great suffering at Guantánamo -- physical and
spiritual -- and lived in constant torment. He complained of physical pain, impaired
hearing and vision, untreated rashes, open sores, and unexplained bruises. He
protested what he saw as the injustice of his confinement by hunger striking
and injuring himself. He became mentally fragile and was at times sedated,
placed on suicide watch, and sent to the prison's psychological unit.
Adnan spent more than ten years in a foreign land separated from
his family, his loved ones, and his home. He was charged with no crimes. He was
cleared for transfer because the government did not believe his detention was
necessary for our national security.
Yet he could see no end to his confinement.
However he died, Adnan's death is a reminder of the injustice of
Guantánamo, and the urgency of closing the prison. May this unnecessary tragedy
spur the government to release the detainees it does not intend to prosecute.
David Remes
(Contact: 202-669-6508/remesdh@gmail.com)?S. William Livingston?Alan Pemberton?Brian
E. Foster?James M. Smith?Philip A. Scarborough?Roger A. Ford?Marc D. Falkoff
