Guantánamo Prisoner Dies After Being Interned For 9 Years.

Awal Gul has finally left Guantánamo - in a coffin. Full text at link.

On Thursday the Pentagon announced that Awal Gul, a 48-year old Afghan prisoner, who had been held for nine years without charge or trial and was scheduled to be held forever, died in a shower after suffering a heart attack. Gul had never been held as a prisoner of war, and despite the US government’s assertions that he could be held forever, no one in a position of authority — neither President Bush nor President Obama — had ever adequately demonstrated that he constituted a threat to the United States.

Unlike the six other deaths at Guantánamo — the three heavily disputed deaths in June 2006, which appear to have involved a secret torture team operating in a secret facility outside Guantánamo’s main perimeter fence rather than the authorities’ claim that the men committed suicide simultaneously, two other alleged suicides in May 2007 and June 2009, and the death by cancer of an unrecognized hero of the anti-Taliban resistance in December 2007 — the death of Awal Gul at least appears straightforward.

Nevertheless, the US government should be ashamed that it has presided over the death of a man whose claims that he was mistakely detained had never been the subject of a judicial ruling, despite the fact that he, along with all the Guantánamo prisoners, had been granted habeas corpus rights by the US Supreme Court two years and eight months ago.