Guards' Lapses Cited in Detainee Suicides

In 2006, suicide notes written by detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said that their acts were attacks against the United States. (By Chip Somodevilla -- Getty Images)

That was Sullami, hanging in Cell A-5. Another gruesome discovery followed, with Tabi's body found in Cell A-12. The men were cut down and brought to the hospital, where they were pronounced dead less than an hour later.

Some of the guards were "very emotional," according to the report.

"I feel that the guards and myself on Alpha block did an inadequate job monitoring the detainees that night to make sure that they were following the rules as to show some kind of skin while sleeping," said one guard, who name was redacted from the documents.

NCIS officials, in a statement released last night, said that in addition to the martyrdom notes found on the bodies, they found other written statements throughout the cellblock, suggesting more suicides could follow. Another detainee killed himself at Guantanamo a year later.

"Due to the similarities in the wording of the statements and the manner of suicides, as well as statements made by other detainees interviewed, there was growing concern that someone within the Camp Delta population was directing detainees to commit suicide and that additional suicides might be imminent," according to the statement. "Representatives of other law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation were later told that on the night in question, another detainee (who did not later commit suicide) had walked through the cell block telling people 'tonight's the night.' "

Said one guard, whose name is also redacted: "I believe the detainees on Alpha block knew this was going on and they encouraged them to commit suicide. I believed they plotted it and utilized our own rules against us."

Sullami had been on hunger strikes throughout 2005 and 2006 and had been force-fed as a result.

The military's Criminal Investigation Task Force had decided years earlier that Sullami, who was arrested near his college in Pakistan in March 2002 and was turned over to U.S. authorities on May 2, 2002, in Afghanistan, was not someone they could prosecute.

"Although many of the individuals apprehended during the raid have strong connections to al Qaeda, there is no credible information to suggest Ahmed received terrorist related training or is a member of the al Qaeda network," investigators wrote in a previously "secret" document.

Zahrani, according to Guantanamo records, was next on the "Saudi DMO" list, which meant he was imminently going to be part of a "Detainee Movement Operation" that would have transferred him to Saudi Arabia's reintegration program and ultimately to freedom.