Guantanamo suicide tries called 'coordinated effort'
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Twenty-three terror suspects tried to kill or harm themselves over nine days in 2003 at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to officials with the U.S. Southern Command.
The attempts occurred between August 18 and August 26 -- 10 of them on August 22, officials said.
The attempts, not previously revealed by the military, occurred in what a military official said was a "coordinated effort to disrupt camp operations."
No detainees have been successful in attempts to kill themselves.
Military officials said a suicide attempt is defined as a case in which a detainee could have died had a guard not intervened, which they distinguish from self-injury attempts that were deemed intended to garner attention.
Two of the 23 cases were serious enough to be officially classified by the military as suicide attempts, The Associated Press reported.
U.S. Southern Command officials did not say whether any of the detainees revealed why they were trying to kill or injure themselves.
Southern Command policy is not to report such attempts unless asked specifically about them by reporters. CNN reported multiple suicide attempts at the camp in 2003.
The number of attempts has dropped since the opening of a psychiatric ward at the detention facility, the officials said.
U.S. Southern Command officials said that the most recent suicide attempt at the detention facility occurred last January.
Some 110 self-injury attempts were recorded in 2004, compared with 350 such attempts in 2003, officials said.
Since the camp opened in early 2002, some 34 suicide attempts have occurred by 21 detainees.
Of the detainees involved in the 23 cases in August 2003, seven have been transferred from the camp for detainment in their home countries or have been released to their home countries, Pentagon officials said.
Officials would not say when those detainees were released or to what countries they were sent, but did say the moves were made between August 2003 through September 2004.
The Guantanamo camp currently houses about 550 prisoners, and questions have been raised about the treatment they receive.
"When you have suicide attempts or so-called self-harm incidents, it shows the type of impact indefinite detention can have," Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for Amnesty International in Washington, D.C., told the AP.
The delayed report "also points to the extreme measures the Pentagon is taking to cover up things that have happened in Guantanamo," Hodgett said.
CNN's Mike Mount contributed to this report.
Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
