Family of Guantanamo Detainee Doubts He Took His Own Life

Talal al-Zharani greets men offering their condolences on the death of his son Yassar, 21, at the U.S. prison in Cuba. (By Faiza Saleh Ambah -- The Washington Post)

MEDINA, Saudi Arabia, June 13 -- Yassar Talal al-Zharani's life began on the Red Sea coast 21 years ago, included a stint as a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, and ended on Saturday in a reported suicide in the U.S.-run prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The death united his friends and family here in grief and disbelief at the Pentagon's version of events.

They described a man who was optimistic, stubborn and too devout to have taken his own life. "He had memorized the Koran by heart. He was a strong believer. How could he take his own life and spend eternity in hell?" asked his sister Sohayla, alluding to Islam's punishment for suicide.

The death of Zharani and two other detainees last week has reignited resentment in the Arab world over the prison that holds more than 450 people, mainly Arab and Muslim men, almost all without charge.

The U.S. administration says most of the facility's detainees are hardened al-Qaeda radicals caught on the battlefields of Afghanistan who must remain incarcerated so as not to stage new attacks on Americans.

Zharani's father, Talal, a fit, bearded 52-year-old retired police colonel, said he believes his son was either hanged by guards or beaten to death by them. The body has not been returned; the father has asked the Saudi government to demand an independent autopsy and investigation.

Sitting with his youngest son and son-in-law in his third-floor apartment Tuesday, Zharani said that when the truth is revealed, it could lead to the closure of the detention facility. "When we expose their crime to the world, then the price for my son's life will have been the freedom of the other prisoners," he said. "I want Yassar to be the last person to die in Guantanamo."

Yassar Zharani was born in the coastal city of Yanbu, the third of nine children. He was the second of three boys, and he spent a lot of time with his mother and sisters and enjoyed amusing them. "He used to sing children's songs to make us laugh," recalled his mother, Umm-Muhammed, 43.

She wore mourning clothes Tuesday, a long-sleeved black shirt and long brown skirt, her hair in a ponytail.

She's not sure why Zharani went to Afghanistan, she said, adjusting her silver glasses. In the summer of 2001, he had just finished 11th grade, and he got permission from his father to go to the United Arab Emirates to take English-language and computer courses. The next thing she knew, he was in Afghanistan.

Zharani's father said he believes his son was working for a relief organization there and got dragged into the war after the U.S.-led invasion that October toppled the ruling Taliban.

But a young man who was recently released from Guantanamo said he had met Zharani several times in northern Afghanistan before the invasion and knew him as a Taliban foot soldier fighting against the Northern Alliance, the country's main anti-Taliban group at the time. The young man, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was captured with Zharani in Mazar-e-Sharif in post-invasion hostilities and took part in a prison uprising there with him.

Saad al-Azmi, a Kuwaiti man who was freed from Guantanamo last year, said in an interview that he spent about a week in a cell next to Zharani's. "He used to be gone for hours," he said. "He told me they used to strip him to his underwear, bind his hands and feet together with iron shackles, and pour cold water on him. He said they wanted to know things about Afghanistan."