Ibrahim Othman Ibrahim Idris, a Sudanese man who was taken to the jail at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba on the day it opened as a suspected bodyguard of Osama bin Laden and who was then launched by the Obama administration as too impaired to pose a risk to the USA, died on Wednesday in Port Sudan. He was 60.
Christopher Curran, a lawyer who represents Sudanese pursuits in Washington, attributed the demise “to medical problems he had from Guantánamo.” The precise trigger was not instantly recognized, however Mr. Idris had been a sickly shut-in at his mom’s residence in his native nation, in Port Sudan, in response to one other former Sudanese prisoner, Sami al-Haj, who asserted that Mr. Idris had been tortured at Guantánamo, on the U.S. naval base there.
Mr. Idris was captured in Pakistan fleeing the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults. He was initially considered a part of bin Laden’s safety element, in response to a leaked U.S. army intelligence profile from 2008. He was by no means charged with against the law, and he denied the allegation.
He was amongst 20 prisoners taken to Guantánamo on Jan. 11, 2002, the day the Pentagon opened its crude, open-air jail referred to as Camp X-Ray as a detention and interrogation compound for enemy combatants. A broadly seen Navy {photograph} from that day reveals the boys on their knees in orange jumpsuits, shackled on the wrists and blindfolded inside a barbed-wire pen.
Navy medical information confirmed that Mr. Idris spent lengthy stretches within the jail’s behavioral well being unit, the place an Military psychiatrist concluded that he had schizophrenia. He additionally developed diabetes and hypertension on the jail.
He was repatriated on Dec. 18, 2013, in a uncommon occasion of the federal government’s selecting to not oppose a petition in federal courtroom for the discharge of a Guantánamo prisoner. His habeas corpus petition invoked home and worldwide regulation, noting that “if a detainee is so unwell that he can’t return to the battlefield, he must be repatriated.” His legal professionals described Mr. Idris as too sick to change into a risk to anybody, and the USA didn’t problem that assertion.
“Given how unwell he was, it was clear that at residence along with his household was the place he would obtain the most effective care,” Ian C. Moss, a former State Division diplomat who organized for Mr. Idris’s switch, mentioned on Wednesday.
On the time, Sudan was nonetheless on the State Sponsor of Terrorism checklist. However as a result of a federal courtroom ordered his launch, he might be returned.
Earlier this yr, Mr. al-Haj, who works for the Al Jazeera Media Community, described Mr. Idris as deteriorating each mentally and bodily in his native Port Sudan. He by no means married, by no means discovered work and was cared for by his mom till her latest demise, he mentioned.
“Ibrahim misplaced his thoughts attributable to extreme torture in Gitmo,” Mr. al-Haj mentioned, utilizing the shorthand title of Guantánamo jail. “American officers, troopers and guards believed he would give some precious info beneath torture. Upon his return, the Sudanese authorities allotted a nominal pension to him.”
Early detainees and F.B.I. witnesses described an interrogation observe of shackling a prisoner nude inside a really chilly cell and depriving him of sleep with blaring loud music and strobe lights, all to achieve his cooperation.
Jennifer R. Cowan, the lawyer who represented Mr. Idris professional bono, mentioned he “ought to by no means have been held at Guantánamo for greater than 11 years.”
“I’m glad that he spent the final seven years of his life free and along with his household,” she added. “However that doesn’t erase his mistreatment by the USA earlier than that.”
Mike Howard, a Protection Division spokesman for Guantánamo issues, declined to touch upon the Idris case particularly however mentioned, “Torture and merciless, inhuman and degrading remedy or punishment is prohibited for all U.S. personnel in all areas.”
He added: “We acknowledge there have been violations of the regulation by U.S. personnel prior to now. Nevertheless, all credible allegations of abuse are completely investigated, and those that failed to stick to those remedy requirements have and can proceed to be held accountable.”