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John Moore / Getty Images file
Camp Delta in the Guantanamo Bay detention center in 2010.
U.S. military officials confirmed Thursday that a guard at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay last January fired a "non-lethal round" to disperse detainees after one of them sought to climb a fence and others threw rocks at the guard tower.
No one was injured during the incident, which appears to be the first shooting involving rubber bullets in the 11-year history of the Guantanamo facility. Nonetheless, it has fueled claims by defense lawyers – denied by camp officials – that the detainees have been engaged for weeks in widespread protests, including hunger strikes and refusing to sleep in their cells.
The conflicting claims about conditions come as the detention facility in Cuba – which began under President George Bush in 2002 – is once again in the spotlight. Congressional Republicans, led by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, on Thursday sharply criticized the Obama administration for flying the recently captured Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son in law, to New York to stand trial in federal court rather than sending him to Guantanamo.
Al-Qaida spokesman and bin Laden son-in-law captured
“When it comes to people like this ... we want them to go to Gitmo to be held in military custody for interrogation purposes," Graham said in a news conference.
But Obama administration officials say they have ruled out sending any more terror suspects to Guantanamo because it would undercut their intention to shut down the facility. On his first full day in office in January 2009, President Barack Obama vowed to close Guantanamo, but he has been blocked from doing so by Congress, leaving most of the 166 detainees remaining there in perpetual limbo – even though at least 55 of them have been publicly cleared for release by an administration task force consisting of U.S. intelligence agencies.
The shooting incident, first reported by the Miami Herald, occurred on the grounds of a new $744,000 soccer and recreation field that was opened last year and touted by base officials as an example of new and more permissive conditions at the facility. The new soccer field was featured in an NBC News report on Guantanamo last June.
Read more at The Isikoff Files
Navy Capt. Robert Durand, chief public affairs spokesman at Guantanamo, told NBC News in an email that on the afternoon of Jan. 2, the incident occurred "after a detainee attempted to climb the fence" in the new recreation field and a "small crowd of detainees began throwing rocks at the guard tower."
"After repeated warnings were ignored, the guard force was forced to employ appropriate crowd-dispersal measures, in accordance with standard operating procedures," Durand wrote.
In response to follow-up questions, Durand said that the measures involved the shooting of a "non-lethal round" consisting of "several small rubber balls with limited ability to penetrate skin and little ability to cause injury." One of these balls "hit a detainee," he added. (During a May 2006 disturbance at Guantanamo, guards fired pepper spray at detainees, Durand said.)
Information only began to emerge in recent weeks when some of the detainees began informing their lawyers – whose communications with their clients are tightly regulated. One detainee, Bashir al-Marwalah, wrote his New York lawyers in a letter received Feb. 22: "We are in danger. One of the soldiers fired on one of the brothers a month ago. Before that, they send the emergency forces with M-16 weapons into one of the brothers' cell blocks."
The letter, a copy and translation of which was obtained by NBC News, further alleged that a copy of the Quran had been "desecrated" during a search the day before and that guards were going from "cell block to cell block" and taking away detainee possessions.
"Now they want to return us to the darkest days under Bush. They said this to us. Please do something." the letter stated. It then concluded: "We asked that this be announced to the media so that people know what the Obama administration is doing to prisoners now. All the brothers are now on a hunger strike in protest of mistreatment and the desecration of the Quran."
The claims in the letter have been echoed in the last few days by lawyers for other detainees , who have said their clients have told them about large-scale hunger strikes – with some detainees "losing consciousness" and "coughing up blood." The claims of widespread hunger strikes have been vigorously denied by Guantanamo officials, who say there are now seven who are doing so – about the same number as have for the past year.
Pardiss Kebriaei, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said she spoke to one of her clients, Ghaleb Al-Bihani, also a Yemeni, by phone this week and he said he has refused food for a month. "He's dropped 23 pounds, he’s a diabetic, and medical staff have told him his life is in danger," Kebriaei said.
Kebriaei said her client told her that there is now a "mass hunger strike" in Camp 6 – the largest and most permissive of the camps at Guantanamo – and that all but two detainees are participating. In addition, she said, the detainees are protesting in other ways – by refusing to sleep in their cells, instead taking their mats outside and sleeping there. The trigger for the protests appears to be new restrictions and more comprehensive searches of cell blocks imposed by the new camp commander, Rear Adm. John Smith.
Durand, the Guantanamo spokesman, disputed the lawyers' claims across the board.
“In broad terms, what we are seeing is a coordinated effort by detainees and their attorneys to take routine camp events and create a false picture of conditions," he wrote in an email. "Every day, to some degree, there are a few hunger strikers, a few detainees who assault or threaten guards. To describe the current conditions in the camp as 'deteriorating' is patently false."
He added: "Detainees, their attorneys, family members and sympathetic organizations routinely attempt to gain sympathy for detainees in the media by initiating and spreading falsehoods regarding conditions of detention, allegations of abuse by guards, denial of medical treatment, abuse of the Quran and reports of mass unrest or hunger striking. These tactics have been employed off and on since Joint Task Force Guantanamo opened in 2002."
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Leave a Comment:
Bush and Chaney should be there with them.
They use rubber bullets because they don't want the steel ones to get AIDS
Wow are you funny. not comical just friggen funny.
Live lead bullets are deemed okay for U.S. prisoners trying to escape, so I don't see why this isn't applicable to Gitmo prisoners too.
For the first poster. Obama voted to close Gitmo. Congress voted against it. I vote what happened to steel bullets for trying to break out of prison for being committed of terrorism in which didn't terrorism kill over 3,000 AMERICANS on the only attack on OUR homeland. Really? 3,000 Americans dead and were actually arguing if rubber bullets were appropriate? He is thankful he is in our detention cause were the only ones who would use rubber bullets after 9/11. Consider him lucky in my point of view as an AMERICAN
The U.S. wasted $770,000 building a soccer field for these clowns? It costs that much to stick up two soccer goals, a security fence and a couple of gun towers? It would be interesting to see the contract on that one. No wonder this country is running such a huge deficit. I would be willing to bet that the $770,000 does not include the soccer balls. LOL. Only in America, or make that Cuba I guess. Probably built by the same contractors who built the American Embassy in Iraq.
I can't wait until the atrocity that is GITMO is shut down. Obama is a liar who said he would shut it down, only to end up chickening out. People just don't get it. You think you know about this place, but you really have no idea at all what you're talking about.
Look missy when you grope up you will learn life is not all rainbows ann butterflies. I for one would not care if they used real bullets, these people support the people that killed Americans in cold blood and you say oh boo hoo theyare being mean to them.we do agree on one thing. Close gitmo, justkill them alland close it.
CLPL
Oh, and this informed opinion by you is based on the fact you have been there? What should we do, put them up at a 5 star hotel with 24 hour room service? Free internet access? Maybe $100 a night call girls (or call goats as they prefer)? Bleeding hearts like you that think we can stop these violent people by sharing ice cream cones and hugging while singing kumbaya are truly delusional.
Line them up, load the Ma deuce, and FIRE AT WILL!!!!!!! Excuse me Miss Mamby Pamby, but these individuals wouldn't hesitate to cut your head off, after raping and sodomizing you!
Flower child mentality in a real world setting.
There is no doubt in my mind that the US will deploy combat troops to the middle east again. The GOP hawks would like nothing more than American boots on the ground in Syria. With this in mind one might want to think twice about America's treatment of POW's. What goes around comes around. Some sweet kid from corn country will pay the price.
Really shea, you mean like them cutting off the heads of their prisoners with a dull blade?
How about this:
If they want to go on a hunger strike, let them, as long as we provide them the opertunity to eat, it is their decision. If they want to escape, let them, if they can make the swim to the US then we can arrest them there, and then deport them to their home country.
No, just feed them good food. bacon, Ham, Pork Chops, Pork Loin, etc.
Why feed them that, we can't even gett food like that over here in Afghanistain.
unfricking believable 750,000 for a soccer field, i thought they were in prison not a country club. i tell you its because our pos so called leader of this country, osoma i mean oboma. maybe i was right with the first name is a muslum terrorist himself.... i really cannot even believe the american people voted this secret alah worshiper into office.... saw there heads off with a dull jack knife like they would have done to us years ago if we attacked there country like they did ours,
and be done with gitmo,
A few facts: not all guilty as charged. Fifty Five have been cleared for release. Some of them, if ever released, will turn against us in terrorist fashion. Holding any of them is illegal. You can't just lock people up forever. They consider themselves at war with us. Simple solution: find a leader smart enough to make peace with the radical Muslim bunch. If no one does, then a lot of dead on both sides. We can't kill them all, and peace will be difficult, but it's the only solution.
We already have a muslim president, what more do they want? Oh that's right, they want to make the world Islam with Shariah law. Convert or be killed is the motto of the "peace loving Islam"
This is getting really strange! An incident that occurred last January (2012) is now being given front page attention by MSNBC because Senator Graham is suddenly concerned about Guantanamo . It is like Graham singing,
Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crece la palma
Y antes de morirme quiero
Echar mis versos del alma
Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera
I am a truthful man
From where the palm tree grows
And before dying I want
To let out the verses of my soul...
and so Graham let rip "Look what Brother Obama is doing to us!"
Wow...I did not know Senator Graham had connection in Gitmo!
It is another one of those manufactured crisis that is all about delay, avoidance and distortion of real issues!
No can do Senator! But you are welcome to sing Guantanamera all you want...It is a great song!
Just pour them a nice glass of Coolaid and walk away! thats what Jim would do!!
Switch to live ammo then, maybe they will like that better. Or better still, use grenades. Many of them aspired to be suicide bombers, here is there chance to die in an explosion.
For Everybodies Information, Gitmo is the Military Prison set up at Guantanamo U.S. Naval Base by George W. Bush. An enemy combatant is a countries military personnel taken as prisoners of war. This why the Taliban from Afganistan and Saddem Husseins military personnel was taken to Gitmo. Al Qaeda, PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah are classified as Terrorist Organizations not belonging to one particular country and want they do is considered Felony Criminal Acts of Terrorism punishable in a Federal Court of Law.
why not just torture them and take them to the "playboy mansion" for a day.
We are supposed to be a Nation of laws. They have the right to a trial, or beeing released if innocent.
We cant hold them indefinately. None of us know who they are or why they are in Gitmo.
We dont care who they are, execute them NOW. We do know that they are Muslim Combatants, that is enough to clean out Gitmo. Execute them.
Why do we spend taxpayer money on building soccer fields for terrorists? These animals should be held in solitary confinement until tried, and then sentenced to solitary confinement for life.
SteveR. No solitary confinement now or never. They are myrderers, execute them now.
How about mining the soccer field? Courage, that must be some really good sh-t you are smoking. Pass some to the other bleeding hearts on here.
Use live rounds. End of story and a tax burden.
Stop coddling these murderers, anyone remember 911. There should be no prisoners at Gitmo, they should all have been executed by now. I dont have any feelings for the Muslims except that they are a murdeous Sect, and should be extinguished. We should not be spending one dime on the captives, get rid of them. NOTE to guards, Do Not use rubber bullets, use real bullets.
A $744,000 soccer field for people that would kill any one of us in an instance? $744,000 for a soccer field for people that came from places where they routinely defecate upon rocks in a cave? Really? Rubber bullets because these grotesque terrorists are throwing rocks at the guard tower from the $744,000 soccer field? Rubber?
The people at the helm of the United States of America have absolutely lost their minds. Unequivocally.
Lindsey Graham, on Thursday sharply criticized the Obama administration for flying therecently captured Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son in law, to New York to stand trial in federal court rather than sending him to Guantanamo
Of course why would we want to get any intel out of him. Obama is a complete moron and the worse president ever, history will show this after the reality sets in, I just hope we all last to see it.
Put bomb vests on each of them, load them into a few old planes set up for remote flight and start flying east from Gitmo. At about 1 hour out, push a button. Problem solved.
What a waste of Rubber bullets. Don't they know that Lead works much better?
Yep, let's get the lawyers involved! That should hose the justice system for a few years, those poor damn Gitmo detainees.
You know, I'm just about as liberal as you can get, but....
every one of these ignorant savages would be blowing up girl's schools or shooting beautiful little girls in the forehead or executing their mothers with AK-47's out on a public soccer field if given the chance, SO....
if you kept them in a freaking cell all....day....long and fed them bread and water, took away TV's and expensive recreation fields, that would be JUST FINE with me.
They're just animals.