Guantanamo inmates clash with guards

Prisoners wielding improvised weapons clashed with guards at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp after four inmates attempted suicide on the same day.

The fight broke out in a medium-security section of the camp yesterday as guards entered a communal living area to stop a prisoner from hanging himself.

Commander Robert Durand, a spokesman for Joint Task Force (JTF) Guantanamo, which runs the controversial camp in Cuba, said detainees used weapons made from fans and light fixtures.

He said “minimum force” was used to quell the disturbance and prevent the suicide.

Earlier in the day, three detainees in another part of the prison had attempted suicide by swallowing prescription medicine they had been hoarding.

The detainees who clashed with guards were moved to higher-security sections of the camp and those who attempted suicide received medical treatment. Their names have not been released.

This was the second reported simultaneous suicide attempt at Guantanamo, which holds detainees suspected of links to al-Qa’eda or the Taliban.

The US military said 23 inmates carried out a co-ordinated effort to hang or strangle themselves in 2003 during a week-long protest.

Word of the clash came as a United Nations panel that monitors compliance with the world’s anti-torture treaty called on the US to close the prison.

The medium-security Camp Four, where the clash happened, is for the most compliant prisoners and those who are slated for release.

Fifteen Saudi Arabian Guantanamo Bay detainees have arrived home after being freed from US custody. The kingdom’s interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, told state media that the 15 named men would be “subject to the country’s laws”.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006.