Awal Gul: enemy combatant or ...?

Awal Gul had been in GITMO for more than eight years when he died this past week.

Monday, February 07, 2011

Detainee Dies of Apparent Natural Causes at Guantanamo

U.S. Southern Command Public Affairs

02.03.2011 MIAMI -- Joint Task Force-Guantanamo announced today that a detainee died of apparent natural causes late Tuesday evening, Feb. 2. The detainee is identified as Awal Gul, a 48-year-old Afghan. He arrived at Guantanamo in October 2002.

Gul was housed in Camp 6, which provides communal living areas for up to 20 detainees. He collapsed in the shower after exercising on an elliptical machine. Other detainees in his cell block then assisted Gul to the guard station for medical attention. The guards immediately alerted medical personnel, who upon arriving at the cell block found him unresponsive. He was immediately transported to the Camp 6 medical bay, and subsequently transferred to the U.S. Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay.

After extensive lifesaving measures had been exhausted, the detainee was pronounced dead.

Per standard procedure, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has initiated an investigation of the incident to determine the cause and manner of the death.

The remains of the deceased detainee are being treated with the utmost respect. A Muslim chaplain is assisting the Joint Task Force to ensure that the remains are handled in a culturally sensitive and religiously appropriate manner. ...

(From WOTN here, for more info)


Gul was there under indefinite detention, and to read some of the stuff about him this week is to believe he was a victim of wrongheaded imprisonment:

Mr. Gul was kind, philosophical, devout, and hopeful to the end, in spite of all that our government had put him through...

That from H Candace Gorman, (here) a Chicago lawyer who represents GITMO detainees pro bono.

Whatever the truth of what Mr Gul was doing for the Taleban, this father of 18 (by all accounts,):

Afghan detainee dies after exercise at Guantanamo

By BEN FOX, Associated Press Ben Fox, Associated Press – Thu Feb 3, 4:35 pm ET

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A 48-year-old Afghan prisoner at Guantanamo Bay collapsed and died, apparently from natural causes, after exercising inside the jail, the U.S. military said Thursday.

Awal Gul fell in the shower Tuesday night after working out on an elliptical machine in Camp 6, a communal section of the Guantanamo reserved for well-behaved prisoners, said military spokesman Army Col. Scott Malcom. The prisoner was taken to the base hospital, where he later died.

Authorities planned to send his remains back to Afghanistan...(Yahoo news here)

We may now never know what Gul's role was in Afghanistan, but even antiwar.com says:

Gul was apparently the commander of an Afghan government supply base when the US invaded in 2001, and had been the commander there for several years. (here)

Other places I have read, are quite clear that Gul ran a weapons depot for the Taleban. Even if we all recognise that having to feed 18 kids means a father will go to work for 'the highest bidder' if you will, fact is that in GITMO Gul was not suffering harsh deprivation. Not at all!

Take a look at a Pajamas Media video that was made IN GITMO here, and you'll even see the kind of exercise spaces that the inmates have access to. Doesn't fit the usual msm stories of the torturous environment KSM and others are subjected to. Go watch the video, and remind yourself of the terrible conditions there.

Whatever the truth of Gul's demise, bottom line is he no longer a resident of GITMO. If he really was as devout a follower of Islam as some tell it, Allah and the 17 virgins have welcomed him.