WikiLeaks

Classifed Gitmo Files Leaked

Shed light on prisoners, interrogation techniques.

WikiLeaks has dumped another trove of classified military documents, this time revealing tantalizing new details about the United States' extra-legal military prison camp at Guantánamo Bay. The documents give the most thorough picture yet of how the prison took shape, how its inhabitants were captured, and how many of them actually posed a threat to the U.S. They also reveal shocking treatment: Mohammed Qahtani, a Saudi believed to have been an intended participant in the September 11 attacks, was leashed like a dog, sexually humiliated, and forced to urinate on himself. An Al Jazeera cameraman was held for six years for questioning about the television network's supposed training program. The documents also shed new light on the 172 men still locked up in the prison—almost all of whom are classified “high risk,” though the files also say a third of the 600 detainees already released also once had that classification. The big picture is of an institution stuck in the past: No new prisoners have arrived at Guantánamo since 2007, and many have been there for several years, yet interrogators continue to question them about crimes increasingly distant in time. One detainee was captured in 2002, but was still being questioned about the wherabouts of Taliban chief Mullah Muhammad Omar six years later.