Washington condemns first suicides by Guantanamo inmates as 'a PR exercise'

Three prisoners at Gunatanamo Bay in Cuba - two Saudis and a Yemeni - killed themselves over the weekend - the first successful suicides at the US prison camp since it opened in 2002 and the latest incident to highlight the fierce controversy over its continued existence.

President George Bush has defended Guantanamo Bay as a necessary means of holding men who would do "grave harm to American citizens" while an increasing number of critics believe the prison's ongoing operation and the Bush administration's refusal to place the prisoners before the courts represents a stain on the nation's reputation.

The debate continued yesterday as military authorities investigated how the prisoners - Manei al-Otaibi, Yasser al-Zahrani and a third detainee whose name has not yet been made public - were able to use their clothes and sheets to hang themselves.

Amnesty International said: "The US administration can no longer turn a blind eye to the cruelty of the regime that it has created in Guantanamo, now in its fifth year. President George Bush has it within his power to order an end to this human rights scandal and to ensure that detainees are either brought to fair trial or released."

Details about the deaths were still emerging last night, but it seems clear the men made some sort of suicide pact. The US military's Joint Task Force Guantanamo said the men had been held in Camp 1 and had previously been among the 131 prisoners who at various times have gone on hunger strike. All three left notes but the contents have not been made public.

Debate was also raging about the motivation for the suicides. Rear-Admiral Harry Harris of the US Navy, the prison commander, claimed the men were "committed jihadists" who died in acts, not of desperation, but of " asymmetrical warfare against us".

"The methods of hanging themselves were similar," he said. "I believe this was a co-ordinated attempt." The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Colleen Graffy, described the suicides as a "good PR move to draw attention".

But lawyers for other prisoners said there had been clear signs of the increasing desperation felt by many detainees held without charge for more than four years - something highlighted by the Red Cross, the only independent body permitted access.

"These people are despairing because they are being held lawlessly. There's no end in sight," Ken Roth, the head of Human Rights Watch, told the BBC. "They're not being brought before any independent judges. They're not being charged and convicted for any crime."

Lawyers said only 10 of the more than 450 inmates at Guantanamo had been formally charged with a crime. They also pointed to a report by New Jersey's Seton Hall University that showed, based on the military's own documents, that 55 per cent of the prisoners are not alleged to have committed any hostile acts against the US and that 40 per cent are not accused of affiliation with al-Qa'ida.

The same documents suggested only 8 per cent of prisoners are accused of fighting for a terrorist group and that 86 per cent were captured by the Northern Alliance or Pakistani authorities "at a time when the US offered large bounties for suspected terrorists".

The military said one of the dead was part of a Taliban uprising at the Qala-I-Jangi prison in Afghanistan, another was a member of Jamaet al-Tableeg, an Islamic group the military considers terrorists, and the other was a "mid- to high-level" al-Qa'ida operative.

But Clive Stafford Smith, a British lawyer who represents 36 men including Binyem Mohammed, a Pakistani who went to school in London and whose hearing before military lawyers has been postponed because of the suicides, said such allegations often bore little resemblance to the truth.

"From what I have seen, just a little scratching of the surface proves the allegations to be false," he said. "One client of mine was alleged to be part of a British al-Qa'ida cell - at a time when he was 11 years old and living in Saudi Arabia."

The future of Guantanamo has been in question for months, with the US seeking advice over the repatriation of 150 prisoners. The UK Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, has called for the prison's closure, describing its existence as "unacceptable", a view echoed yesterday by the Constitutional Affairs minister Harriet Harman, who said: "It is in a legal no man's land. Either it should be moved to America and then they can hold those people under the American justice system or it should be closed."

Protests at Camp Delta

* January 2002

Soon after Guantanamo opens, doctors begin force-feeding two detainees on hunger strike for nearly a month.

* April 2003

The number of suicide attempts since the camp opened reaches 24, involving 17 detainees.

* August 2003

23 detainees stage an eight-day protest, trying to hang or strangle themselves.

* December 2003

350 incidents of "self-harm" are reported in 2003, including 120 "hanging gestures".

* August 2005

A mass hunger strike begins. Involving 131 detainees at its peak. The strike ends in February 2006 when American military use restraint chairs for force-feeding. US authorities insist the tactic is "humane and compassionate".

* May 2006

A group of detainees attacks guards the day after two prisoners attempt suicide using hoarded anti-anxiety drugs.

* June 2006

Three detainees commit suicide by hanging themselves with bedsheets, the first deaths reported since Guantanamo opened.