Amnesty International Urgent Action, 51/037/2010

AMR 51/037/2010 USA
7 May 2010 URGENT ACTION

Guantánamo detainee held in isolation

Yemeni national Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif is being held in isolation in Guantánamo. He told his laywer in March that he continues to be subjected to ill-treatment and indicated that he feels suicidal.

Yemeni national Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif (whose Internment Serial Number is 156) has been held in Guantánamo without charge or trial for more than eight years. He is currently being held in isolation in Guantánamo’s Camp 5, which holds the few remaining hunger strikers at Guantánamo and some other detainees. Adnan Latif was on hunger strike but has now abandoned it. Almost all of the other Guantánamo detainees now live in communal conditions in Camps 1, 4, and 6. Adnan Latif’s lawyer has asked the authorities to end his isolation by moving him to one of the other camps.

In a letter to his lawyers written in March 2010, Adnan Latif alleged that he had been repeatedly ill-treated by Guantánamo’s Immediate Response Force (IRF). He states that “IRF teams enter my cell on [a] regular basis. They throw me and drag me on the floor…two days before writing this letter [the IRF team] strangled me and pressed hard behind my ears … I lost consciousness for more than an hour”. His lawyer told Amnesty International that he has cuts and bruises. Adnan Latif also wrote in his letter in March that the circumstances in which he is living “makes death more desirable than living…I find no taste for life, sleep or rest”. He has made several suicide attempts in Guantánamo. On 10 May 2009, Adnan Latif cut one of his wrists during a meeting with his lawyer at Guantánamo and threw his blood at his lawyer. Thereafter, he was made to meet with his lawyer in shackles.

Adnan Latif was previously held in solitary confinement in a psychiatric ward at Guantánamo. Amnesty International does not have further information about Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif’s current health, but given his previous suicide attempts, his reported physical and mental health problems, combined with his continued indefinite detention without charge or trial, Amnesty International remains seriously concerned for his physical and psychological health.

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif’s family, including his young son, live in Yemen.

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