29/06/2006
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, June 28 — Hundreds of Saudis descended on a suburban cemetery here in the Saudi capital late Wednesday to bury Mani Shaman al-Utaybi, 30, one of three prisoners who committed suicide this month at the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay. Mr. Utaybi was laid to rest in a nondescript grave, in keeping with Saudi tradition, at the Nassim Cemetery on the outskirts of Riyadh in a ceremony marked by displays of rare public emotion. The mourners, some of whom expressed anger over the detentions or disputed the Americans' version of the deaths, included some former Guantánamo detainees. Early on Wednesday, Saudi authorities released the bodies of Mr. Utaybi and Yasser Talal al- Zahrani, the other Saudi involved in the suicide, but a family lawyer said results of an eagerly awaited autopsy by a Saudi coroner would not be available for some time, pending further results from both American and Saudi investigations. Mr. Zahrani's family is to fly his body to Medina on Thursday afternoon for burial in the holy city on Thursday morning. The body of the third prisoner involved in the June 10 suicide, Ali Abdullah Ahmed, a Yemeni, was transferred to his family on Monday, and buried in his home village shortly afterward. "Theirs is a dignified death," said one relative of Mr. Utaybi, who gave his name only as Abu Osama. "We should all desire a death like theirs." The suicides were the first at Guantánamo since the United States began holding terrorism suspects there in 2002, setting off widespread criticism over the prison. American officials said the three hanged themselves with clothes and bedsheets in their cells. A doctor at the camp's hospital told Reuters on Wednesday that weeks before the suicides, many of the detainees were found to have pills stuffed into the waistbands of their pants and in one case inside a prosthetic leg. Guards also found nooses in other prisoners' cells, suggesting further that other prisoners planned to take part in coordinated suicides, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, who oversees detention operations, was quoted as saying. But mourners on Wednesday continued to cast doubt on the American version of the deaths, insisting that they were more likely a result of foul play. Faris al-Utaybi, Mr. Utaybi's cousin, who said he had been the family member in charge of receiving Mr. Utaybi's body, insisted that the suicide had been a cover-up. "The body had a bruise on its head and on its arms," Mr. Utaybi said. Mr. Utaybi said his cousin had gone to Afghanistan about three months before the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States to volunteer for an aid group but then was taken into custody. In letters he sent home while in Guantánamo, Mr. Utaybi appeared to be in good spirits, his cousin said. Mourners said they doubted that the men would have taken their own lives, a grave sin in Islam that they differentiated from suicide attacks. "Anyone who wants to get to heaven wouldn't do something like this," insisted Ahmed al-Qahtani, who stood among the crowd paying his respects at the cemetery. "These guys were going to heaven." "And they thought they were going to be released soon anyway," Mr. Qahtani said. SOURCE: New York Times |
