The detainee found dead in a maximum-security cell at Guantánamo was a long-despairing Yemeni captive with a history of suicide attempts who at one time won a federal judge’s release order, only to see his case overturned on appeal and rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The detention center on Tuesday identified the dead captive as Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, in his 30s, held since January 2002 as prisoner No. 156. He was found unconscious in his cell at the prison’s Camp 5 Saturday afternoon, the military said. Guards and military medical staff could not revive him. He was the ninth detainee to die in the 11 years of the detention center.
The military withheld Latif’s identity while the Naval Criminal Intelligence Service began an investigation and the Obama administration arranged to notify his family as well as Congress of the death.
Latif was not one of Guantánamo’s best known captives. He had never been charged with a war crime, and he was cast at best as an al-Qaida foot soldier in the Defense Department’s own military intelligence assessments obtained by McClatchy from WikiLeaks.
But his lawyers for years portrayed him as a pitiful prisoner — both in the media and in court documents — who frequently tried to kill or harm himself and spent long periods confined to the prison’s psychiatric ward.
A frequent hunger striker,
