Little information about those held at Guantanamo has been released through official government channels. But stories of 60 or more are spelled out in detail in thousands of pages of transcripts filed in US District Court in Washington, where lawsuits challenging their detentions have been filed. The previously anonymous detainees provide accounts of their imprisonment and impressions of US justice. Some express defiance, others stoic acceptance of their fate.
The detainees appeared last year before military tribunals which, after quick reviews, confirmed their status as ''enemy combatants" who could be held indefinitely.
Omar Rajab Amin, a Kuwaiti who graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1992, wanted to see the evidence. The ''tribunal president," the de facto judge for the proceeding, replied that he could review only unclassified evidence.
''You are not the master of the Earth, Sir," Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani businessman, told a tribunal president.
Feroz Ali Abbasi was ejected from his September hearing because he repeatedly challenged the legality of his detention.
''I have the right to speak," Abbasi said.
''No, you don't," the tribunal president replied.
''I don't care about international law," the tribunal president told Abbasi just before he was taken from the room. ''I don't want to hear the words 'international law' again. We are not concerned with international law."
The tribunal found Abbasi to have been ''deeply involved" in Al Qaeda, yet four months later the government released him, saying his home country of Great Britain would keep an eye on him.
The Guantanamo Bay detainees come from about 40 countries and were picked up mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, designated enemy combatants by the Bush administration.
In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled last June that the detainees may challenge their imprisonment. The Pentagon hastily responded nine days later, creating the tribunals and pushing through reviews of everyone at Guantanamo by year end.
A military spokeswoman said Friday the Pentagon believes the tribunals allow for the review called for by the court ruling.
