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Official Reports of Mr. al Hanashi's death

On June 1, 2009, Mr. al Hanashi was found unresponsive in his Guantanamo cell at 10:04pm and was pronounced dead at 10:54pm. On June 23, 2009, Mr. al Hanashi's death was deemed a suicide by ligature strangulation. This determination appeared in the autopsy for Mr. al Hanashi, which emerged only in 2011 pursuant to a FOIA lawsuit initiated by the ACLU.

Four years later, in 2015, and pursuant to a FOIA request initiated by Dr. Jeffrey Kaye, a Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) report was released which stated that, shortly after Mr. al Hanashi's death, an NCIS agent had requested that no Detainee Information Management System (DIMS) logging take place. Thus, the DIMS log for Mr. Hanashi ends at 9:18pm, which is 46 minutes before he was found unresponsive in his cell.

Also pursuant to Dr. Kaye's request, another NCIS report was released which revealed that two key sets of documents pertaining to the death of Mr. al Hanashi were "missing and unrecoverable". They were the DIMS logs made for Mr. al Hanashi on the day of his death and the day after at the Behavioral Health Unit where he was housed.

It is hard to understand how DIMS logs can be (a) stopped, and (b) lost accidentally. According to an Army 15-6 report completed in 2006, "The Detainee Information Management System (DIMS) is the primary system for Camp Delta guards to record everything related to detainee and events that occur in the blocks, as well as the primary system employed by the JDG staff in performance of staff duties […] At the cell block level, guards enter log entries into DIMS at the beginning of each shift, and throughout the shift. These entries are reviewed by Platoon Leaders, Sergeants of the Guard, Block NCOs, and sometimes by the FGIW officer […] DIMS entries are mandatory, continually updated, and thorough."

Not only are DIMS logs critical documents in themselves, the particular DIMS logs, some of which where here stopped and others lost, described the very day of Mr. al Hanashi's death and the day thereafter.

This loss of key documents in a case of death in custody at Guantanamo is not unique. A page in a log book detailing the events surrounding the three deaths in custody of 2006 was also torn out (see NCIS1354). And, years later, in 2012, DIMS logs for the death of yet another Guantanamo prisoner, Adnan Latif, were not properly entered.

For more analysis of the circumstances surrounding Mr. al Hanashi's death, see Jeffrey Kaye, Cover Up at Guantanamo. Amazon.