According to the transcript (PDF) a meeting of 19 February 2002 (AFEB) forces epidemiological Board "[a] number of inmates died from wounds they arrived with" at Guantanamo Bay. This Declaration came Captain Alan "Jeff" Yund, a doctor of preventive medicine and the AFEB, Navy liaison officer as he discussed the "mortuary Affairs" in Guantanamo, part of a larger discussion on the new installation of prison health issues.
Meeting, Captain Yund identified as working directly with Admiral Steven Hart, Director of naval medicine research and development, as well as "a number of other admirals."
Full citation of the Yund looks as follows, on page 108 of transcription (emphasis added):
Mortuary Affairs is an important aspect, but I hope that the small hospital [Guantanamo] activities.A number of prisoners died of wounds that they came with. There is therefore a focus on doing things with the body that would be appropriate for their culture.
In an interview with email 7 December with Captain Yund, who is now retired Yund stated that he did "not remember that I was never very directly involved in matters of Health held" at Guantanamo Bay. Therefore, he stated as follows in which concerns his statement detainee deaths:
"I did not this statement of personal or direct knowledge." It may come from the presentation of the CAPT Shimkus, or perhaps of conversations or meetings with other colleagues of Navy preventive medicine personnel. It is not the type of statement I would have done without having learned from a source I regarded as reliable. »
The reference to "Capt. Shimkus" is Captain Albert j. Shimkus, Commander of u.s. naval hospital at Guantanamo, at the time and surgeon's head of 160 of faith. Captain Lund explained that recall hearing a "a fascinating and detailed account" "events and challenges" in Guantanamo, although he could not remember the date or location. This is the "presentation" that Captain Yund mentions in his explanation above.
In a telephone conversation with Captain Shimkus, which is now Professor associate national security decision-making process at the US Naval War College, December 13, Shimkus expressed shock claims there were any death at Guantanamo, while he was there. (Captain Shimkus Guantanamo left in August 2003). He said that "no deaths not to" while he was there, but he told at the time of the task force in preparation for possible death. He could not offer any explanation for what reports Captain Yund.
Comment or correction on the Yund announcement detainee deaths in transcription AFEB itself, there is no surprise. The meeting also gathered other senior-levels of DoD, including Admiral Hart and defence for the protection of health and preparation, Dr. William Winkenwerder and his Deputy, Group Deputy Secretary Ellen Embrey, consulting medical civil bureaucracy and the military medical personnel. The meeting at the Club on the island of North Island Naval air station, San Diego, was chaired by Mr. Steven Ostroff, centers for disease control.
Obviously, in the initial days of transfer of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, a number of detainees arrived with battle to injuries. Notes of a physician working at the facility, dated date 22 February 2002, I've reviewed, discuss the previous day of cardiothoracic and neurosurgery. Thoracotomy (excision of part of a lung) would have been carried out on detainees "205." Notes on the same day also describes an incident in which an inmate was handcuffed via a broken arm.
In response to my initial survey 2002 Guantanamo detainee deaths, major Bradsher fully replied as follows:
Is press release refers to "three detainees died apparent suicides, 10 June 2006" and is a summary of the disposition of the remains.
After this first communication of the operations the DoD Press Office, I asked for clarification and especially "why would a captain of epidemiological Council of armed forces in February 2002 meeting see death prior to Guantanamo, ostensibly battlefield injuries."
Major Bradsher replied: "I can't speak for Captain Yund." As I said before, the first death detained at Guantanamo Bay has been in June 2006. »
At this point, what we have is a mystery. There is no other reports concerning early mortality of battlefields among the prisoners at Guantanamo. We know that some of them arrived on scopes and need immediate medical. We know that officials there should some deaths. But DoD maintains that no deaths before June 2006 took place and senior journalist at the AFEB meeting on this subject, Yund, Captain are reminded not statement, although it notes "" is not the type of statement I would have done without having learned from a source I regarded as reliable. ""
Dr. Steven Miles, author of oath betrayed: torture, medical complicity and the war on terror, share its reaction to the news of possible death reported here:
This is an extremely important event. I have tried, without success, to have the DoD or media, clarify the huge inconsistencies in death of prisoner reports in vain. My article on this remains unpublished by the medical media and Slate, etc.
Uncertainty as to what was really the past in the first days at Guantanamo are accentuated by the recent revelations by Truthout.org and centre of Seton Hall Law at the University for research and policy on the administration of drugs for inmates who arrived at Guantanamo Mefloquine mass. Conspicuously described as a measure against malaria, there are many reasons to question its use, not least because of its many known high rates of neuro-psychiatric side effects, and also because that mass Mefloquine empiric therapy was never produced and experts find use potentially harmful and without medical justification.
Truthout promised an investigation further in scandal, Mefloquine, including interviews with some of the principles in question, in a report to be published in the next week.
There is a huge for Congressional investigations or independent need have the full power of mandate and assignment of ferret to the truth about what occurred at Guantanamo and other prisons U.S. "war on terror". The biggest obstacle in addition to the Pentagon and the Group of images, is the Democratic Party leadership itself, who refuses to undertake or fund these investigations, and head to the White House, President of Barack Obama, opposed to - against the obligations arising from treaties described in section 12 of the Convention against torture - these investigations.
