Gitmo Detainee Says Clash Involved Qurans

[Eugene]

Gitmo Detainee Says Clash Involved Qurans


Wednesday June 7, 2006 11:16 PM

AP Photo NYET752

By BEN FOX

Associated Press Writer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - A Guantanamo Bay detainee who participated in a clash
with U.S. military guards last month said it was sparked when guards tried to search
prisoners' Qurans, contradicting the military's account of the melee, his defense
attorney said Wednesday.

The detainee also denied the contention by military officials that prisoners in the
May 18 clash in Guantanamo Bay lured guards into a cell by staging a suicide attempt,
defense attorney Kristin Wilhelm told The Associated Press.

<snip>

Wilhelm said the detainee, a Yemeni whom she could not further identify because
of Pentagon rules, told her the guards demanded that prisoners turn over their Qurans
so they could be searched for hoarded medicine, which the military said had been used
in two suicide attempts earlier in the day elsewhere at the prison camp.

One detainee offered to collect the Qurans and search them in front of the guards,
but the military guards refused and entered the cell block, setting off the fight,
she said. She said the prisoners used only a floor lamp against the guards and that it
quickly ended when one detainee succumbed to pepper spray used by military police.

<snip>

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5871332,00.html