September 10, 2012, New York – Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) released the following statement in response to the news that a ninth man has died in detention at Guantánamo.

With great sadness, the Center for Constitutional Rights condemns the fact that yet another detained man – the fourth on President Obama’s watch – has died at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, most likely without charge and certainly without trial. Neither the name of the man nor the details of his death have yet been released by the Department of Defense.  Whatever the cause turns out to be, it is clear that the United States government is ultimately responsible for his death.

 

Military investigations into several of the deaths at the base remain under a cloud of suspicion; and the Center’s clients, families of two men who died there in 2006, never got their day in court or the chance to know the truth about what happened to their sons.  The Center for Constitutional Rights calls on the government to preserve the evidence in this case, conduct a full and impartial investigation, and treat the body and the family with all proper respect, none of which, regrettably, has consistently occurred in the past.

 

More than half the men remaining at Guantánamo have been cleared for transfer but remain imprisoned, trapped by politics.  Whether because of despair, suicide or natural causes, as Guantánamo enters its 11th year of operation – 11 years of indefinite detention without trial or prospect of release – death has become an inevitable consequence of President Obama’s failure to close the prison.