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Home Front: WoT

Lawyer claims Guantanamo abuse worse since Obama

2009-02-25

LONDON (Reuters) - Abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has worsened sharply since President Barack Obama took office as prison guards "get their kicks in" before the camp is closed, according to a lawyer who represents detainees.

Abuses began to pick up in December after Obama was elected, human rights lawyer Ahmed Ghappour told Reuters. He cited beatings, the dislocation of limbs, spraying of pepper spray into closed cells, applying pepper spray to toilet paper and over-forcefeeding detainees who are on hunger strike.

He doesn't have any proof, of course, but that hasn't stopped any of the critics ...

The Pentagon said on Monday that it had received renewed reports of prisoner abuse during a recent review of conditions at Guantanamo, but had concluded that all prisoners were being kept in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

"According to my clients, there has been a ramping up in abuse since President Obama was inaugurated," said Ghappour, a British-American lawyer with Reprieve, a legal charity that represents 31 detainees at Guantanamo. "If one was to use one's imagination, (one) could say that these traumatized, and for lack of a better word barbaric, guards were just basically trying to get their kicks in right now for fear that they won't be able to later," he said.

Then again, if one were a lawyer, one would stick to what could be proven and would turn one's imagination off ...

"Certainly in my experience there have been many, many more reported incidents of abuse since the inauguration," added Ghappour, who has visited Guantanamo six times since late September and based his comments on his own observations and conversations with both prisoners and guards.

He stressed the mistreatment did not appear to be directed from above, but was an initiative undertaken by frustrated U.S. army and navy jailers on the ground. It did not seem to be a reaction against the election of Obama, a Democrat who has pledged to close the prison camp within a year, but rather a realization that there was little time remaining before the last 241 detainees, all Muslim, are released.

"It's 'hey, let's have our fun while we can,'" said Ghappour, who helped secure the release this week of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident freed from Guantanamo Bay after more than four years in detention without trial or charge. "I can't really imagine why you would get your kicks from abusing prisoners, but certainly, having spoken to certain guards who have been injured in Iraq, who indirectly or directly blame my clients for their injuries and the trauma they have suffered, it's not too difficult to put two and two together."

Counselor, your clients are taught to lie.

Posted by:Steve White

#4 By the time they were let go, they would each look like Manuel Uribe.

And be emotionally labile. Remember the Twinkie murder defence?

Posted by: trailing wife 2009-02-25 16:51

#3 If I really wanted to mess with the Gitmo prisoners, there diet would be just loaded with junk food--all they could eat. Coca-Cola, Twinkies, Big Macs, Krispy Kremes, ice cream, etc. By the time they were let go, they would each look like Manuel Uribe.

Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-02-25 16:38

#2 ...and I guess he's calling the Attorney General a dirty, stinking liar?

WASHINGTON Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday the Guantanamo detention center is a well-run, professional facility that will be difficult to close but he's still going to do it. Holder visited the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Monday and spoke to reporters about his trip during a news conference Wednesday.

Holder said his visit to the site was instructive. He met with military officials and toured the facilities, including the court setting where military commissions were to be held until Obama suspended them.

He said he did not witness any rough treatment of detainees, and in fact found the military staff and leadership performing admirably.

"I did not witness any mistreatment of prisoners. I think, to the contrary, what I saw was a very conscious attempt by these guards to conduct themselves in an appropriate way," he said.

The attorney general said none of those impressions alters the administration's goal of closing Guantanamo by January 2010.

"It does not in any way decrease our determination to close the facility, even though as I said it is being well-run now," he said.

Posted by: tu3031 2009-02-25 16:29

#1 "It's 'hey, let's have our fun while we can,'" said Ghappour...

Ah, so you're against fun are you, counselor...

Posted by: tu3031 2009-02-25 16:24

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