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Ron DeSantis clashed with a reporter when questioned about Guantanamo Bay.
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DeSantis worked as a naval attorney at the base where terror suspects were held.
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A former inmate claims DeSantis witnessed him being force-fed.
Flordia Governor Ron DeSantis engaged in a brief conversation with a reporter after being asked if he had witnessed the torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
At a press conference at the Museum of Tolerance in West Jerusalem Thursday, DeSantis was questioned about a former detainee’s claim that he watched as he was forced to be fed while working as a naval attorney at the base.
“Do you really believe that’s credible? It’sā¦ 2006, I’m a non-commissioned officer, do you really think they would have remembered me?’ DeSantis reacted angrily.
Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was used to hold prisoners during the so-called “war on terror” in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
The UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross are among the organizations that have criticized the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Many say they were systematically tortured and ill-treated while held there without charge. The US has rejected the claims.
Mansoor Adayfi, a Yemeni citizen detained at Guantanamo Bay for 14 years, has told news outlets that DeSantis witnessed being force-fed during a hunger strike in 2006.
The UN has said it considers the force-feeding of Guantanamo detainees a form of torture. The US has denied this, saying that peacetime prisoners’ rights did not apply because the US was at war with terrorists, officials told NBC News at the time.
In an April op-ed for Al Jazeera, Adayfi described being tied to a chair and forcibly administered a protein drink through a tube up his nose until he vomited.
“As I tried to break free, I saw the handsome face of DeSantis among the crowd on the other side of the chain link. He watched me struggle. He smiled and laughed with other officers as I screamed in pain,” he wrote.
Two former detainees, as well as defense attorneys and base officials, have told The Washington Post that DeSantis had seen “up close” disturbing incidents at the camp during his time there.
DeSantis was deployed to the base as a young naval attorney. He has previously said that he advised in favor of the force-feeding program, but later backtracked.
“So at that time everything was legal in some way,” DeSantis told one CBS partner in 2018.
“So the commander wants to know, ‘Well, how can I fight this?’ So one of the legal counsel’s jobs is something like, “Hey, you can force-feed, here’s what you can do. These are pretty much the rules for that.’
But as he prepares for a possible bid for the presidency in 2024, DeSantis has sought to distance himself from alleged abuse of detainees at Guantanamo, saying in a March interview that he did not have the authority to force-feed the base. to stand.
“There may have been a commander who would have provided food if someone died, but that wasn’t something I even had the authority to do,” he told Piers Morgan on Fox Nation.
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