Dead detainee sent from Guantanamo to Yemen
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By Carol Rosenberg | Miami Herald
Still mum on the circumstances of the death, the United States on Thursday sent to Yemen the autopsied remains of a long-held detainee at Guantánamo who the military said committed suicide in his cell.
Detention center officials declined to say why they suspected suicide in the death of Muhammed Ahmed Abdullah Salih, 31, the first captive to die during the Obama administration at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
Guards and military medical staff discovered his body in a cell sometime Monday and could not revive him, according to a brief military account, which was short on details.
A Yemeni diplomat, dispatched from Washington, reached the remote base Wednesday, observed the autopsy and accompanied the repatriation flight to Sana'a on Thursday, embassy spokesman Mohammed Alabasha said.
Military spokesmen would not confirm an attorney's account that the man was being held in an ostensibly suicide-proof psychiatric ward at the prison camps, known as the Behavior Health Unit.
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