Scott Horton alleges a cover-up of homicides by the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, Justice Department and Department Of Defense
Scott Horton has a new piece up at the Harper's website, "The Guantánamo 'Suicides': A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle," that's a must-read.
If Mr. Horton's sources are accurate and his conclusions correct, the United States Navy, Army, the Justice Department and the Department of Defense have covered up the murders of three Guantánamo Bay inmates in June 2006, acts possibly committed by the CIA with the complicity of Navy guards. Although all three inmates were presented to the public at the time as terrorists (whose alleged suicides were spun as a bizarre form of "asymmetrical warfare" to a mostly-too-credulous press), it appears that two of the inmates were within weeks of being released and the only obstacle to the release of a third was "difficult diplomatic relations between the United States and Yemen."
As if this wasn't appalling enough, the Camp Delta whistleblower came forward in 2009, encouraged by the presence of a new administration in Washington D.C.. (He allegedly had an early meeting with an official described as "[Attorney General Eric] Holder’s eyes," which I find interesting because AG Holder was an early and now, it seems, strangely silent voice in favor of investigating and prosecuting war crimes.) There is a possibility, based on Mr. Horton's claims in the article, that officials in the Obama administration are now furthering a cover-up of what really happened to three men in American custody who (according to the official account) swallowed rags, bound their own hands and feet, covered their faces, and then hanged themselves (just to be sure, I suppose) with handmade nooses without their guards noticing anything amiss for more than two hours.
I remain unfazed by any claims anyone still cares to make that the investigation and prosecution of crimes such as those alleged by Mr. Horton is somehow "political." After three years of law school and twelve years of criminal defense practice, I was unaware that "politics" was a legal defense to war crimes and/or homicide.
Please read the piece for yourself. Thank you.
(H/T to Glenn Greenwald at Salon.)
UPDATE: Horton has filed an update to his story, regarding official responses from two of the parties concerned.
If Mr. Horton's sources are accurate and his conclusions correct, the United States Navy, Army, the Justice Department and the Department of Defense have covered up the murders of three Guantánamo Bay inmates in June 2006, acts possibly committed by the CIA with the complicity of Navy guards. Although all three inmates were presented to the public at the time as terrorists (whose alleged suicides were spun as a bizarre form of "asymmetrical warfare" to a mostly-too-credulous press), it appears that two of the inmates were within weeks of being released and the only obstacle to the release of a third was "difficult diplomatic relations between the United States and Yemen."
As if this wasn't appalling enough, the Camp Delta whistleblower came forward in 2009, encouraged by the presence of a new administration in Washington D.C.. (He allegedly had an early meeting with an official described as "[Attorney General Eric] Holder’s eyes," which I find interesting because AG Holder was an early and now, it seems, strangely silent voice in favor of investigating and prosecuting war crimes.) There is a possibility, based on Mr. Horton's claims in the article, that officials in the Obama administration are now furthering a cover-up of what really happened to three men in American custody who (according to the official account) swallowed rags, bound their own hands and feet, covered their faces, and then hanged themselves (just to be sure, I suppose) with handmade nooses without their guards noticing anything amiss for more than two hours.
I remain unfazed by any claims anyone still cares to make that the investigation and prosecution of crimes such as those alleged by Mr. Horton is somehow "political." After three years of law school and twelve years of criminal defense practice, I was unaware that "politics" was a legal defense to war crimes and/or homicide.
Please read the piece for yourself. Thank you.
(H/T to Glenn Greenwald at Salon.)
UPDATE: Horton has filed an update to his story, regarding official responses from two of the parties concerned.
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