When a rifle-owning cook traveled the lands of Afghanistan, he never imagined that his culinary experience in the Taliban would lead to detainment by the United States government. Nor did he know that owning a simple Casio watch could ever be considered as a bomb-detonating device.
This was one of the examples used by Professor Mark P. Denbeaux in his lecture to a full capacity crowd in the School of Nursing auditorium. The speech dealt with the unfair confinement of many Guantanamo Bay detainees, as reported by a study conducted by Seton Hall law students.
“Fifty-five perfect of those detained in Guantanamo are specifically not found to have committed any hostile acts against the United States government or its allies,” the Seton Hall professor said Tuesday night.
In his PowerPoint presentation, Denbeaux showed the scan of a leaflet dropped by American planes stating, “Get wealth and power beyond your dream…This is enough money to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life.”
A possible result of the leaflets was that 86 percent of all detainees were captured and sold to the United States government by bounty hunters, said the Seton Hall University professor. He also stated that only five percent were actually captured by United States forces.
Denbeaux also stated that he was disappointed in knowing that journalists and lawyers did not take the initiative to investigate the unclassified information on the detainees.
Communications professor Gisela Gil-Egui agreed.
“There are so many gray areas and so much obscurity. And I concur with him about the very lousy role the press has played,” said Gil-Egui.
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