Guantanamo Bay files leak

The Guantánamo Bay files leak (also known as The Guantánamo Files) began on 25 April 2011, when WikiLeaks, along with several independent news organizations, began publishing 779 formerly secret documents relating to detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp. The documents consist of classified assessments, interviews, and internal memos, which were written by The Pentagon's Joint Task Force Guantanamo, headquartered at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The documents are marked "secret" and "noforn" (information that is not to be shared with representatives of other countries).

The documents reveal that some of its youngest and oldest detainees, which include an 89 year old man and a 14 year old boy, suffered from fragile mental and physical conditions. They also reveal that over 150 innocent Afghans and Pakistanis, including farmers, chefs, and drivers, were held for years without charge.

Source of the leak

The New York Times says it received the documents from an anonymous source other than Wikileaks, which they shared with other news outlets such as The Guardian and NPR. Wikileaks, however, noted that "our first partner, The Telegraph, published the Gitmo Files 1am GMT, long before NYT or Guardian." The original source of the leak may be Bradley Manning, who is currently detained for allegedly having leaked other material to Wikileaks. The Guardian reports that "the Gitmo files are the fifth (and very nearly the final) cache of data that disaffected US soldier Bradley Manning is alleged to have turned over to the Wikileaks website more than a year ago." However, before the time of Manning's alleged leak, WikiLeaks was already being reported and rumored to have Gitmo files.

Detainees

Al-Jazeera journalist Sami al-Hajj was detained from 2002 to 2008 "to provide information on [...] the al-Jazeera News Network's training program, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations." He was considered to be "a HIGH risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies." He claims to have been beaten and sexually assaulted.

"Nuclear hellstorm"

Another element from the documents cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammed saying that, if Osama Bin Laden is captured or killed by the Coalition of the Willing, an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell will detonate a "weapon of mass destruction" in a "secret location" in Europe, and promised it would be "a nuclear hellstorm". This admission might have been extracted from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after he was waterboarded by the CIA.

Reactions

As for previous releases, Wikileaks stated that at least as important as the content of the published documents is the reaction of each media news outlet; Wikileaks suggested to "compare the first paragraph of these two stories about the same thing" by BBC and CNN. The BBC version opened with the statement:

Wikileaks: Many at Guantanamo 'not dangerous' -- Files obtained by the website Wikileaks have revealed that the US believed many of those held at Guantanamo Bay were innocent or only low-level operatives.

While the CNN version stated:

WikiLeaks reveals details about Guantanamo detainees -- Nearly 800 classified U.S. military documents obtained by WikiLeaks reveal extraordinary details about the alleged terrorist activities of al Qaeda operatives captured and housed at the U.S. Navy's detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The US government issued a statement that read: "it is unfortunate that The New York Times and other news organizations have made the decision to publish numerous documents obtained illegally by Wikileaks concerning the Guantanamo detention facility." The documents seem to be "Detainee Assessment Briefs" (DABs) written between 2002 and 2009 and "may or may not represent the current view of a given detainee."

See also

• Black site

External links

• Guantanamo files by WikiLeaks