Saudis Allege Torture in Guantanamo Deaths

In this April 6, 2006 file photo, reviewed by U.S. military officials, a detainee walks and others sit, as a guard looks on standing next to a hut, within the fenced in grounds of the maximum security prison at Camp Delta, at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba. (Brennan Linsley - AP)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- The reported suicides of two Saudi detainees at Guantanamo Bay intensified Saudi anger at the camp, drawing questions Sunday about whether the men really killed themselves or were driven to it by torture.

The detention of more than 130 Saudis at the U.S. jail has long grated on people in the kingdom, and there was marked skepticism that the prisoners committed suicide.

"The families don't believe it, and of course I don't believe it either," said Kateb al Shimri, a lawyer who represents relatives of Saudis held at Guantanamo.

"A crime was committed here and the U.S. authorities are responsible," al Shimri said, echoing the general sentiment heard in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Al Shimri said he planned to sue the U.S. government for compensation on behalf of the relatives of the deceased.

The kingdom's semiofficial human rights organization called for an independent investigation into the deaths of the two Saudis, who were identified Sunday by Saudi officials as Mani bin Shaman bin Turki al Habradi and Yasser Talal Abdullah Yahya al Zahrani.

A Yemini prisoner also killed himself early Saturday, U.S. authorities said. His identity was not released.

Many Saudis denounced the suicide claim as a fabrication, and some accused U.S. authorities of complicity in the inmates' deaths.

"There are no independent monitors at the detention camp so it is easy to pin the crime on the prisoners, given that it's possible they were tortured," said Mufleh al-Qahtani, deputy director of the state-sponosred Saudi Human Rights Group.

Saleh al-Khathlan, director of monitoring at the rights group, explicitly accused Guantanamo officials of torturing detainees.

"Even if the suicide story is true, I have no doubts that they were pushed to it by torture and the lack of attention paid to the health of the detainees," he said.

The families of other Saudi detainees also questioned the U.S. version.