"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde..."
It is with profound sadness, but also anger, that I submit humbly this diary. I thought the Daily Kos community should not be unaware not only of the death of an innocent man, but of the very real possibility that a crime is being covered up before our eyes in that abomination of a hellhole that is Guantanamo.
Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a 27-year-old man with a brain injury from a car accident, swept up in the orgy of war and fear after 9/11 and sold for $5000 by the Afghan Northern Alliance to the Americans, had spent over 10 years in Guantanamo. He had been cleared for release many times. But even though a federal judge had granted his habeas request for release, the Obama Administration challenged that ruling.
A 2-1 vote of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that ruling, relying on one anonymous statement from a government informant, and infamously ruling that the government had a "presumption of regularity," such that Latif (or any other prisoner) could not challenge such anonymous raw intel reports.
The Supreme Court refused to overturn, and the case became an international cause célèbre. Amnesty International was planning a world-wide campaign to work for Latif's release. But before they could, the despairing man was found dead in his cell last September 8.
New revelations show he died from a drug overdose. Was it suicide? Or was something else at work here? You decide. But do not ignore this man's death.
My story is below, but two other crucial articles, which I reference in the diary, can be read at The New York Times and Truthout.org.
Latif himself was a poet, and in one of his poems from Guantanamo he wrote: "Where is the world to save us from torture? / Where is the world to save us from the fire and sadness?"
Read More
