Something's Rotten At Camp Delta.

As others have already noted, a new report by Seton Hall researchers casts doubt on the official account regarding three detainees -- Yassar Talal Al Zahrani, Mani Shaman Turki Al Habardi Al Tabi (who had been cleared for release), and Ali Abdullah Ahmed -- who were said to have committed suicide at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay Prison in 2006. At the time, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the commanding officer, called the deaths "an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”

The new report makes the official story of suicide look absurd and unbelievable:

Accepting the military investigation findings as true and complete, in order to commitsuicide by hanging, the detainees must have:

Braided a noose by tearing up their sheets and/or clothing

Made mannequins of themselves so it would appear to the guards that they wereasleep in their cells

Hung sheets to block the view into the cells, a violation of SOPs

Tied their feet together

Tied their hands together

Shoved rags in their mouths and down their throats

Hung the noose from the metal mesh of the cell wall and/or ceiling

Climbed up on to the sink, put the noose around their necks and released their weight,resulting in death by strangulation

Hung dead for at least two hours completely unnoticed by guards

SOPs [standard operating procedure] required guards to note movement or to see the detainee‘s skin while walking the block. This raises many questions as to how three detainees on the same cell block, on the sameside of the block, were able to complete the aforementioned acts without any Alpha guardsnoticing.

As Glenn Greenwald points out, the parents of two of the detainees filed a lawsuit against the Bush administration for the treatment of their sons, one that the Obama administration is arguing should be dismissed on the same grounds as their predecessors: that the Fifth and Eight Amendments to the Constitution do not apply to Guantanamo Bay detainees and therefore they had no right not to be tortured.

Marcy Wheeler concludes, "I’ve leave it to the lawyers to assess the merits of the suit. But this report makes it clear that the government may have reason to want to avoid discovery."

-- A. Serwer