THE GUANTÁNAMO files: judging risk of detainees, often with flawed evidence

Relations between guards and inmates at Guantánamo are dangerous cooperative.

WASHINGTON - Said Mohammed Shah Alam, an Afghan of 24 years who has lost a leg in adolescence, said interrogateurs in the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that he had been enlisted by the Taliban as a driver before being detained in 2001. He was caught, he said, that he tried to "save his younger brother of Taliban."

These articles are based on a huge trove of documents secrets leak last year in organizing anti-secrecy WikiLeaks and available for the New York Times by another source on condition of anonymity.Editors and journalists who have worked on these articles will be select replying to questions on the coverage of the subject.

Raw military analysts. Mr. Shah, who had been fitted with a prosthetic leg by prison physicians, was "cooperation" and "expressed the thoughts of violence or threats made to the United States or their allies," according to a 2003 friendly evaluation. His conclusion: "" detainee does not pose a future threat to the United States or U.S. interests. ""

Thus in 2004, Mr. Shah was sent back to Afghanistan - where he proves himself to be Abdullah Mehsud, a born activist in Pakistan and began plotting mayhem quickly. He recorded videos jihadist, organized a force of Taliban to fight US troops, planned an attack against the Minister of the Interior of Pakistan which killed 31 people, oversaw the kidnapping of two Chinese and finally fact engineers exploded a bomb suicide in 2007such as the Pakistani army closed in. His martyrdom was hailed in an audio message by none other than bin Laden.

Guantánamo analysts complete misinterpretation of Abdullah Mehsud was among hundreds of classified assessments of inmates in the prison of Cuba which have been obtained by the New York Times. The non-redacted assessments give more complete public image to this day to prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay over the past nine years. They show that the United States had imprisoned hundreds of men for years without trial based on a difficult and remarkably subjective evaluation of who they were, what they had done in the past and what they could do in the future. 704 Evaluation documents use the word "maybe" 387 times, "unknown" 188 times and "misleading" 85 times.

Considered with the decisions of judges on legal challenges by detainees, the documents reveal analysts sometimes ignored serious flaws in the evidence - for example, that the information came from other inmates whose mental illness makes it unreliable. Some assessments cite witnesses say they saw a prisoner in a camp run by Al-Qaeda, but fail to record of the witnesses of lying or misidentification. They include admissions of detainees without recognizing other government documents showing that the statements were withdrawn subsequently often attributed to torture or ill-treatment.

A growing distrust

Written between 2002 and 2009, the evaluations reflect a growing mistrust on the part of analysts of Guantánamo. As early as the, reports are just a page or two and often optimistic in tone. In 2008, after scorching advertising on released detainees who joined Al-Qaeda and the decrease in the prison population hardened inmates, assessments are decidedly more conservative.

For all cases where an Abdullah Mehsud - someone wrongly deemed a threat to minimum - there are several instances where rated "high risk" prisoners were released and are not engaged in reprehensible acts. Murat Kurnaz, a German resident of Turkish origin, was found in an evaluation of 2006 to be a member of Al-Qaeda who fell into the most dangerous category: "high risk" and "likely to pose a threat to the United States, its interests and its allies."

Nevertheless, the US authorities, under pressure from the Germany and the Turkey, dismissed analysts and sent Mr. Kurnaz Germany home three months later. He has not joined the global jihad but rather became a prominent critic of Guantánamo, written a book and media to countless appearances to denounce the American prison.

Among the more revealing of the disclosure of documents is a 17 page guide for analysts, obviously prepared by trainers of military intelligence, on how to assess the danger posed by an inmate. It lists the major groups of detainees, including the so-called 30 sale, which were the bodyguards of Mr. bin Laden, as well as the large group of officers accused Qaeda captured with Abu Zubaydah, a terrorist facilitator important, two pension of FaisalabadAu Pakistan, in 2002. It lists nine mosques associated with Al Qaeda, in Quebec, Milan, London, the Yemen and Pakistan.

The guide shows how analysts seized on the smaller details as a possible test for risk. If a prisoner had a Casio F91W watch, it may be an indication, he attended a course to make bombs of Qaeda where these watches were presented - while this model is sold to date worldwide. (In the same way, a Yemeni prisoner assessment suggests a disastrous use for his pocket calculator: "Calculators can be used for calculations of indirect fire, such as those needed for artillery fire.")

Taken prisoner without travel documents? It could mean that he had been trained to make them more difficult identification, the guide explains. An inmate who claimed to be a simple farmer or a Cook, or in the business of honey or the search for a woman? Those that were common of the Taliban and Qaeda cover stories, analysts have been informed.

And a classic catch-22 situation: "Refusal to cooperate," the guide explains, is a technique of Qaeda resistance.

Yet, the guide seems to be the fruit of years of experience in trying to transform the bits of evidence of variable reliability into a conclusion. In particular, he cites as a narrative enlightening the error of assessment at the beginning Abdullah Mehsud, the suicide bombing Pakistani, who had said he was forced to join the Taliban. It was "an example", the guide explains, "" of a detainee who has successfully applied the history of the coverage of conscription as a means of ensuring its warning of the U.S..""

Scott Shane reported Washington and Benjamin Weiser to New York. Reports, contributed by Charlie Savage of Washington and William Glaberson, Andrew w. Lehren and Andrei Scheinkman of New York.

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THE GUANTÁNAMO files: classified files provide new knowledge on detainees

WASHINGTON - A trove of over 700 classified military documents provides accounts of the men who made time in the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and new and offer new knowledge on evidence against 172 men still trapped there.

The U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay still holds 172 detainees, most rated "high risk". These articles are based on a huge trove of documents secrets leak last year in organizing anti-secrecy WikiLeaks and available for the New York Times by another source on condition of anonymity.Editors and journalists who have worked on these articles will be select replying to questions on the coverage of the subject. A detainee at the Guantanamo Bay prison prayed outside his cell in 2007, in a zone for more compliant detainees.

Military intelligence officials, in the assessments of prisoners written between February 2002 and January 2009, assessed their stories and provided an overview of the tensions between the captors and captives. What began as an experiment bar after the 2001 terrorist attacks now appears to be a sustainable American institution, and leak files show why, laying naked the patchwork evidence and contradictory that, in many cases, would never have stood up to the criminal court or military tribunal.

Documents meticulously record the "pocket litter" detainees when they were captured: a ticket for bus in Kabul, a false passport and the false student ID, restaurant reception, even a poem. They list of diseases of prisoners - hepatitis, gout, TB, depression. They note their serial examinations, listing - even after six years of relentless questioning - remaining "zones of potential exploitation." They describe the offences of inmate - guards punching, tearing shower shoes, yelling through barracks. And, as analysts try to strengthen the case for continued incarceration, they save years of comments on one of the other inmates.

Documents secret, made available to the New York Times and several other news organizations, revealed that most of the remaining 172 prisoners have been noted as a "high risk" to represent a threat to the United States and their allies if released without supervision and adequate rehabilitation. But they also show that an even greater number of prisoners who left Cuba - about a third of the 600 has already been transferred to other countries - have been also designated "high risk", until they were released or transferred to the custody of other Governments.

The documents are mostly silent on the use of tactics harsh interrogation at Guantanamo - including sleep deprivation, shackling in stress positions and prolonged exposure to cold temperatures - which attracted global condemnation. Several prisoners, however, are described as false stories about being subjected to abuse.

Allegations of the Government against many detainees have long been in public and were often challenged by the prisoners and their lawyers. But records, prepared under the Bush administration, provide a deeper look at the frightening if, with gaps, intelligence who managed to persuade the administration of Obama, also, that the prison cannot easily be closed.

The prisoners particularly concerned included counter-terrorism officials some accused of being killers of Al Qaida, secret agents for a suicide mission cancelled and detainees is committed to their interrogators would wreak vengeance against America.

Military analysts files provide further details on the most infamous of their prisoners, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the planner of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Some time around March 2002, he ordered a former Baltimore resident to put on a jacket of suicide bombings and to conduct a "martyr" attack against Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan, according to documents. But when the man, Majid Khan, arrived in the Pakistani mosque that he had said that Mr. Musharraf went, the assignment has proven to be just a test of its "willingness to die for the cause".

Records also show the intuitive intelligence in war zones that led to the incarceration of men innocent years error of identity or simple misfortune. In May 2003, for example, Afghan forces captured prisoner 1051, Afghan named Sharbat, close to the scene of the explosion of a bomb, the documents show. He denied any involvement, saying that he was a shepherd. Analysts and Guantánamo speakers agreed, citing its consistent history, his knowledge of the animal husbandry and its ignorance of "simple military and political concepts", according to its assessment. Still a military tribunal declared him an "enemy combatant" in any event, and it is not sent home until 2006.

Administration officials Obama condemned the publication of classified documents, which were obtained by the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks group last year but has provided both by another source. Officials have noted that the administration task force created in January 2009 has reviewed the information in the assessments of the prisoner and in some cases come from different conclusions. Thus, they said, the documents published by the Times do not represent the opinion of the current Government of persons detained at Guantánamo.

Among the conclusions in the files:

20Th ?the pirate air: the documented case of abusive interrogation at Guantánamo was coercive interrogation, late 2002 and early 2003, Mohammed Qahtani. A Saudi believed to have been a participant in the attacks of 11 September, Mr. Qahtani a leash like a dog, sexually humiliated and forced to urinate on himself. His file said: "Although published publicly records allege inmate was subject to harsh interrogation techniques, in the early stages of detention" his confessions "appear to be true and are confirmed in the reports from other sources." But claims that he is said to have been at least 16 other prisoners - especially in April and May 2003 - are cited in their files without warning.

Charlie Savage reported from Washington and William Glaberson and Andrew w. Lehren in New York. Scott Shane contributed reporting from Washington and Benjamin Weiser and Andrei Scheinkman of New York.

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THE GUANTÁNAMO files: as acts of war and despair, suicide rattle a Prison

Twenty-one months later, the army announced that Mr. Ahmed, a Yemeni and two other prisoners were hanged simultaneously themselves.

Death in June, 2006 - the first Guantánamo - fueled a debate among military officials, who held "an act of asymmetric warfare against us" suicides by jihadists seeking martyrdom, and critics of the prison, which was interpreted as an act of desperation by men with little hope of a fair trial or release.

Since then, the other two inmates were able to kill themselves - a in 2007 and another in 2009. In this context, a collection of files of detained secret assessment obtained by the New York Times reveals that the suicide threat has created a chronic tension in the prison - a tactic frequently evoked the captives and a constant fear of their captors.

Files for approximately two dozen detainees to refer to suicide attempts or threats. Others mention informants passing on rumours that prisoner volunteered for suicide then and efforts to organize suicide attempts. Two prisoners have been surprised if it would be enough time for a person at the end of his life if create inmates blocked their cell Windows, diverting of guards who would to remove the obstacles of weighing.

Medical officials struggling to keep the hunger strikers, other officials were in constant alert signs of distress. In May 2008, an inmate ordered inmates to "cease to sing this song;" We will sing Monday when our brothers leave. "His record noted:" was assessed it meant planning of suicide attempts. " ?

Even stray remarks on suicide could have consequences. When evaluating the level of risk of prisoners, analysts noted that they would have expressed their support for suicide - reduce their chances of release.

And both parties have focused on the implications of public relations: a prisoner told others in February 2006 death of a detainee "would open in the eyes of the world and result in the closure of the base.".

In the early years of the prison, where many prisoners have experienced mental health problems, suicide attempts have been generally described as a medical problem. One involved damage to the brain after trying hang Saudi Arabia had been "treated here for depression," said its assessment of 2004. The file for another detainee with 12 "serious suicide attempts", including cutting the throat in December 2005, said that he suffers from "major depressive disorder."

Over time, however, officials seem to to take a view more wary, the documents suggest. In January 2005, a prisoner tried to hang after be placed in a cell with another inmate that he suspected of being an informant. An analyst noted that he "knows how logistics" and that "if he"attempted suicide"would be moved from his cell and outside of" the other detained.

But the death of Mr. Ahmed and two others in June 2006 was a turning point. It marked the culmination of a period of intense multiple protests and mass agitation, including an attempt unsuccessful suicide the previous month by several detainees who swallowed prescription drugs that they and others had hoarded.

Three deaths have acquired a particular reputation among critics of the prison, with some even skeptics say they were homicides. Evaluations of three men do not address how they died later.

Records, part of a collection of leak last year the organisation anti-secrecy WikiLeaks, show that men share a history of hostile behaviour, defiant toward their captors, but also that the evidence against them varies.

Mr. Ahmed was arrested in a raid on a house in Pakistan that officials believed was linked to Al-Qaeda. He was a student religious who had never been Afghanistan. Analysts believed that he was lying, his file shows, because several other detainees alleged that they had seen camps training and with members of Al-Qaeda.

The second detainee, a Saudi named Mani shaman al-Utaybi, was arrested at a Pakistani checkpoint, in a taxi with four other men all hiding under burqas. He said that he was a preacher for an Islamic missionary group, an organization officials believed had sometimes helped extremists.

Said Mr. Utaybi file someone had been carrying elsewhere is the passport and made "inconsistent statements." One of the men arrested with him was a terrorist training camp - but two others had already been released. Analysts, said he knew little and recommended to send him to Saudi Arabia for continued detention.

However, the file for the third detainee, a Saudi named Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, said that freely, he admitted that he went to Afghanistan to be a jihadi fighter. He said also that he had shouted laughing "9/11 you don't forget" to a member of the staff of the prison, said a guard "it would use a knife to cut open his belly, cutting his face and then drink his blood".smiling and laughing as he said. ?

Several assessments later other inmates are references to three suicides. Such a file, for example, mentions in passing that a prisoner reported that another inmate told him "he had been approached and recruited by three inmates had committed suicide."

And the brother of Mr. Ahmed, Muhammad Yasir Ahmed Taher, who was also a prisoner until his repatriation in 2009, wrote to a member of the family representative Mr. Ahmed as"a martyr", according to an evaluation. One analyst concluded that the two brothers "regarded suicide as a continuation of their jihad against the United States."

Andrew w. Lehren contributed reporting from New York.

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