coming up on r t todays the six month mark for the guantanamo bay hunger strike even with growing calls for the detention camps closure its future remains unclear we have extensive coverage of the hunger strike and the calls to close the facility up ahead. it's tuesday august sixth four pm in washington d.c. i'm sam saks and you're watching our special coverage of the hunger strike back on tony mowbray. so what exactly are we talking about when it comes to guantanamo well let's take

a look at the numbers the prison is now in its twelfth year of operation in that time seven hundred seventy nine men have been deemed to have been detained there including more than twenty children according to u.s. government data ninety two percent of these inmates were never affiliated with al qaeda and eighty six percent of them were captured not by u.s. soldiers but instead thanks to bounty offers and all of those seven hundred seventy nine prisoners five hundred thirty two were eventually released by the bush administration another seventy two by the obama administration nine individuals have died active mo including seven from apparent suicides that's more than the number of detainees you've actually been convicted of any crime. so that leaves one hundred sixty six prisoners still there of those eighty six have been cleared for release but are still waiting and forty six have been deemed too dangerous to be released but the government doesn't have enough evidence to prosecute them in

a trial and each year it's costing two point seven million dollars per prisoner to operate that mo every year making it the most expensive prison in the world. now six months ago to raise attention to their condition the prisoners i gave moment today hunger strike at its peak in july one hundred six prisoners were on a hunger strike that's more than two thirds of the entire prison population and forty five are being force fed a procedure that's been described as inhumane or even torture a spy organizations like the u.n. and the american medical association today the latest numbers from the u.s. army show that fifty seven prisoners remain on hunger strike forty one still being force fed and one hunger striking detainees is being observed in the hospital and this is now five years after president obama promised to close down the prison a promise he soon realized he was unfit to keep. walks out of all bets easy to

close down guantanamo are legitimately is reduced when we've got. a mole that is open when we suspend habeas corpus those kinds of things erode our moral claims that we are acting they have broader universal principles i have said repeatedly that i intend to close guantanamo and i will follow through on that person executive order that we are signing. by the authority vested in me as president a. president by the constitution and laws of the united states of america promptly close the detention facility at guantanamo bay i knew when i order to guantanamo closed that it would be difficult and complex it was always our intent to transfer detainees to other countries only under conditions that provide assurances that our security is being protected it is not a surprise to me that we've got problems in guantanamo which is why. when i was campaigning in two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight. and when i was

elected in two thousand and eight i said we need to close guantanamo now congress. determined that they would not let us close my badge addresses and let me visit find out how the voice of that woman. is worth paying attention to. the obvious obviously. obviously i do not agree. with much of what she said that despite all that everything you heard there. is still open. now the latest news coming out of guantanamo concerns invasive or what some are calling abusive searches of prisoners before they leave camp to make a phone call or to meet with their lawyer the regularity of these sorts of searches is new having only appeared around the time of the start of the hunger strike and they're having a profound effect as detainees are now refusing meetings with their lawyers just so

they don't have to go through these intrusive searches and lawyers argue that this is the intended purpose of the searches to control the flow of information out of the prison as well as the detainees access to legal counsel reporter jason leopold filed a motion in federal court to have the procedures in rationale for the search is released but according to a brief filed by the department of justice last week releasing such information could put the prison at risk of an attack from al qaeda the brief reads quote release of the operational security and force protection information in the declaration would better enable our enemies to attack the detention facilities at guantanamo bay or undermined security at the facility yes the department of justice is concerned that al qaeda may attack on tom up and this is the point when all the trappings of our war on terror began devouring each other and whatever the reason it's important to remember that with the force feeding and now the search is the conditions for prisoners ag want to know are not getting any better in fact they're

getting worse earlier we spoke with parties a senior staff attorney at the center for constitutional rights who represents several detainees and we asked her how all of this is affecting her clients. i was at guantanamo the first week of june and i met with three men that we represent all yemeni two of them have been cleared they're among the group of eighty six who have been cleared by the obama administration to leave and they were cleared in two thousand and nine. none of them have been charged. they were all participating in the hunger strike one of them was actually a long time a long term hunger striker and he's being force fed so he's going through the process that we've heard much about and that has been widely condemned by the united nations by the red cross by the american medical association by the world medical association by everyone which entails being strapped into a chair have

a tube force up your nose down into your stomach and have liquid formula pumped in for an hour he goes through that at least once a day. their condition was they were struggling when i saw them they were almost five months into their strike they had lost a significant amount of weight i had seen them in april and i was i was shocked at how much how much more weight they had lost and the physical changes that i had seen between april and june so they were struggling but when i saw them they were still very much resolved to continue their strike to continue as they told me until they saw actual transfers happen i have not been able to speak with them or meet with them since then because of searches that have been happening at guantanamo because of conditions at the base the searches and taylor. incredibly invasive

physical searches that happen four times every time the men are moved from their cells to a meeting room with an attorney or to a phone call with an attorney or even to a phone call with a family member they go through what has been described as. as a physical assault a sexual assault and that is absolutely i think consistent with what i've heard one of the men i met with told me and what it was like being moved to our meeting room and he was it took him half an hour just to calm down he was so as a tape it and so so upset and he went through that again four times on the way back as a result of those searches we had scheduled a phone call with him two days after i met with him and he turned that phone call down because he couldn't go through with it we then got a letter from him a month later this month in july actually telling us to cancel a trip that we had planned in august to see him because he couldn't bear to go through those searches that was part senior attorney for the center for

constitutional rights now of the nine prisoners who have died get most seven were by way of an apparent suicide the latest case was that of adnan latif who was found dead in his cell last september according to the autopsy on died by swallowing twenty four capsules of his anti-psychotic medication and prison officials have used steps to implement these invasive searches of prisoners before entering and leaving camp to make sure that the prisoners aren't smuggling pills according to officials there but i know it's attorney believes there's more to the story than what's being told in his unique insight into the conditions of imprisonment i get know as well as what life can be like after time served. he joins me now david remes human rights attorney welcome thanks for having me so the head of us south com general john kelly alleges that these new searches are result of. death. what happened you were his you were his attorney what happened and how do you

explain get no administration's response to his death we still don't know exactly what happened south com narrative south coms narrative is that he smuggled these pills into his cell where he and. asked of them and died of an overdose i had an article out in. truth that i found which went through the various phases of his imprisonment in the last two or three weeks before he died it seems to be impossible that he could have hoarded the pills and impossible that he could have swallowed smuggle them so we just don't know the answer now with respect to the invasive searches the the commander as you say traced it to odd nonce death but the fact is they didn't they didn't start these gentle searches as they're called until early may od non died in early september so if there is a connection there either it's not an urgent situation or it's just

a pretext. we've had seven as i mentioned apparent suicides at guantanamo bay your client on how the history of mental illness the facility are in this is a tough prison to be at i mean you could imagine that people are suffering mental illness just being there are the facilities there adequate to deal with that sort of illness well in guantanamo had least the object is not to treat the detainees it's to keep the detainees subdued so they'll medicate them into a zombie like state and when the detainees sort of comes out of that they'll medicate him again. i don't think that odd naan really did want to commit suicide my theory is he wanted to get transferred from a terrible cell back to the hospital where he had been i don't think that you can take for granted that that that that was his motive you take the three guys who

died in two thousand and six scott horton has raised serious questions about whether those worse suicides now that's not to say there aren't causes for suicides there isolation is about the worst thing you can do to a man and on a long long term basis it can do a tremendous amount of damage plus the brutality of the guards and the sadism of the commander. now david you've represented how many detainees and how many have been released from guantanamo over time i've represented over two dozen. had five detainees who had been released one of whom was a libyan the others were yemenis now we have some photos here of you with two of your clients who've been released from guantanamo one of the big arguments right now against closing guantanamo is that if we release these prisoners back to their

home countries they might engage in hostile behavior to the united states you are familiar with people who have been released what are they up to well the picture you have is a picture i believe of two of my clients who i saw who are working in a honey shop in thai ease for med and mohamed hossam the store sells spices perfumes honey very good honey it's a it's a real store in downtown thai ease they both got married they're both building families these guys want to return to rebuild their lives to pick up where they left off if they possibly can there's no question that this is it that this is not a zero risk proposition but you can't keep one hundred men captive because there's a possibility that one or two might misbehave when they get out and misbehave is an understatement you've been working with detainees at gitmo for

a while now you've seen the trajectory of the prison here is it getting closer to being close is it getting further away from being closer the conditions for prisoners worsening are they getting better where do you see this all leading to well right now the conditions have gotten a lot worse since a commander of the detention group named john bogdan has taken over the previous commander ruled with a rather a light touch. keeping the men its content as he could under the circumstances by. been has tried to rule with an iron fist and the result has only been chaos and disorder. so i think that the conditions have gotten radically worse since he came in. in terms of going forward which is not really within his control i really don't think the place is going to close. doubtful that congress is going to let detainees come into the united states and i doubt that the u.s. is going to wind up being able to transfer everybody and then they'll be the

commission defendants who are convicted and will be a general lack of political will to close the problem we have just a few seconds left why do you think the hunger strike numbers dropped there could be any number of factors or a combination it's ramadan men want to be together rick ramadan isolation is terrible six months is a hell of a long time to be on a hunger strike and some men may think that they've achieved their objectives and getting everybody focused on guantanamo get their attention i was human rights attorney david remes. now as a result of the six month hunger strike there's been some actual movement in the direction of closing the facility. liz wall reports on what this hunger strike has managed to accomplish so far it began and february dozens of detainees taking part in a hunger strike they refused food to protest indefinite detention in harsh treatment

now as days and then months go by their health continues to deteriorate eventually military doctors resort to force feeding the detainees to keep them alive a practice that has since been condemned by members of congress and military physicians the plain truth is a force feeding violates medical ethics and international legal obligations and nothing claimed in the name of defending our country can justify cruel inhuman and degrading treatment of another man or woman the protest reached its peak in early july one hundred six detainees were on hunger strike forty six of them being force fed it's a problem congress could no longer ignore on july twenty fourth the senate judiciary committee held the first hearing dedicated to shutting the base down since two thousand and nine every day it remains open guantanamo prison weakens our alliances

inspires our enemies and calls into question our commitment to human rights countries are to champion the rule of law and human rights do not walk away prisoners indefinitely without charge or trial the obama administration has made little progress in achieving his goal of shutting the base down the promise he's made since his first presidential run and once again in may he declared his dedication to close the controversial prison did most become a symbol of around the world for an america that flouts the rule of law since that speech there has been some signs that the administration is serious. the white house announced it would transfer two detainees from guantanamo bay back to algeria another sign a new state department envoy was appointed tasked with overseeing the transfer of prisoners and a meeting at the white house president obama and the president of yemen agreed to work together in sending guantanamo bay detainees cleared for transfer back to their home country this visit i think reinforces the strong partnership cooperation

that's to go through the united states ever dealt with a critical partnership since most of the detainees act will entente i'm obey are from yemen but even with these moves they're still in doubt the prison will close any time soon it remains a sensitive subject with many unanswered questions i have a hard time seeing how it how it is responsible to shut down our detention facilities and send these individuals home where they almost surely would be released and almost surely would return to threaten and kill more americans on the hunger strike has died down during the holy month of ramadan but dozens are still refusing food and while the fate of the prisoners remains uncertain the hunger strike at the very least has washington talking in washington liz wahl r.t. . one of the chief architects of the guantanamo bay detention facility is now

saying the prison should have never been built in the first place where you're white so is the deputy assistant to defense secretary for detaining affairs and then in an exclusive interview with the daily mail over the weekend lights said it was wrong from the get go to create this nether region of law a quantum obey and that prisoner should have been legally designated as prisoners of war held in afghanistan until the war is over than either released or charged with a crime and taken back to the united states but that didn't happen and here we are nearly twelve years later so how are these flaws in the creation of good know from the very beginning me. it's so difficult to close the prison today and what can we do to restore rule of law to the prison that just can't be closed joining me now is retired colonel morris davis former chief prosecutor at guantanamo bay and now a law professor at howard university and lieutenant colonel barry when card defense attorney back on tom obey gentlemen thanks thanks for joining me here as i mentioned in the intro we have one of the architects basically of kuantan was

saying the prison should have never been opened to begin with we should have designated these people prisoners of war help them out in afghanistan and in charge people here in the united states what did we do instead colonel davis well it was really interesting to read the article over the weekend bill lead so i don't know very well but i've known him for quite a while and as you mentioned he was one of the original architects he was a judge advocate a military officer back working for the defense department when nine eleven happened so he really was they are from day one planning this process that now in two thousand and thirteen he says never should have happened to begin with and he seems to be like a number of other officials that shortly before leaving office do a one eighty and try to get on the right side of history before they step out of the i think it's dick cheney i saw an interview with him and he said that they purposely chose guantanamo bay because they could do it outside legal protections that are afforded in the united states what are some of those rights and legal protections that they've managed to evade by by creating guantanamo bay if you go

back i mean the whole rationale for choosing guantanamo was it was believed at the time which is proven wrong over history was it was outside the reach of the law is the perfect place to exploit people for intelligence and not to apply the geneva conventions which all of the military services argued we should as. we should apply the geneva conventions treat these people as p.o.w.'s and we had the john hughes and the dick cheney's and david addington who came up with this new category of the unlawful enemy combatant which is the term you will find in the geneva conventions that we came up with to avoid. void the law and not call them. lieutenant colonel berry when guard you are a defense attorney. what exactly does that mean when when do you get called into to defend detainees how do you fit in sort of the legal system that's been built at guantanamo bay well back in two thousand and eight the end of the bush

administration they attempted to put many cases into the process the military commissions and when in so doing what they did is they entitled these men defense attorneys military defense attorneys now to date there's only been about thirty cases where the men actually have a military defense attorneys so why we're told is to be a zealous advocate for my clients i have a kuwaiti and an afghan and the afghanis cleared for release and that kuwaiti will be indefinitely detained forever. my job is to go down to guantanamo bay and to try to formulate a strategy to gain their release through the judicial system unfortunately it doesn't appear as though any justice is forthcoming in guantanamo bay in any way shape or form so you say that there's been thirty cases that roughly thirty cases brought here no not thirty cases brought to d.m. to the bush administration they attempted to try to put a bunch of cases into the system now the majority of those cases the charges have since been dismissed as we've seen in both of my cases that i represent the prisoners and we're thinking of seven hundred seventy nine prisoners have gotten

out of this facility some are still in the facility of those they've only tried to charge thirty or so with a crime well i mean eleven and a half years we've done seven completed proceeding seven the majority of those seven have not sustained the burden and have been reversed so to date it's my understanding there's about three cases where it has the stain and those convictions have been upheld about three that's out of seven hundred seventy nine men best case scenario according to the government's own statistics if all goes right and they get the substandard system of justice known as the military commission that's prob prosecute. oriel they can do up to twenty cases total colonel davis you're a former prosecutor at guantanamo what does it say that of all these people have come in and out they've had only seven convention convictions and of that some were overturned and of those seven five of the seven are no longer at guantanamo so one of the jokes we're used to make was it get no you got to lose to win because if you

actually get charged as a war criminal and convicted you right now have a five and seven chance that you're not it get were for another hundred sixty some guys they've never been charged never convicted and have no you know prospect of going home but it was clearly again it was picked as a site that was outside the reach of the law we created a second rate system of justice has been amended again and again and again and again and each time we've told the world trust us this time we've got it right and we've managed to you know slug through seven cases in eleven years for federal courts have prosecuted hundreds over the same period of time so we need to give up this charade in either prosecute these guys in federal court or start making plans to send them home. as a as a former prosecutor who now says that this facility should have never been opened in operating the way it did what caused you to come to that understanding but again the military the uniformed military services were never in favor of guantanamo to

begin with but the political appointees told us you know we had to do it and so we tried to make the best of it and i believe when i took the job there were people appointed above me that were committed to trying to do this in a credible way may have made the comment before that you know my generation looks back at nuremberg with kind of a romanticized view of how we did just as they are and my hope was that my grandkids may look back one day. with that same notion but over time it's become clear that even now if they have the most perfect trial ever conducted for k s m for instance no one's going to believe it's really justice. the administration has this list of forty six individuals who have been too deemed too dangerous to believe but they can't really be tried in court because they don't have the evidence to convict them or the evidence they do have isn't permissible in court. what do we support what do we do with those those guys well let me tell you one of those forty six happens to be one of my kuwaitis his name is fine as he's from kuwait to wait happens to be one of the strongest allies of the united states at

the end of the bush administration they said if you build a rehabilitation center we're send your sons back to kuwait well kuwait went ahead and built a forty million dollar rehabilitation center today there's thirteen thousand american troops in kuwait so i mean i've looked at the evidence in my client's case i've been studying this case for five years i know virtually every fact in this case and i'm here to tell you that this man will never get a trial it's double triple quadruple hearsay it's incredible statements i mean that they said that he surrendered his passport when he went to afghanistan i went to afghanistan and found his passport that's when they said oh well no they change their strategy completely and said oh that just means he's super al qaeda and not a not a trainee anymore given that like your client does the this is the reason why this was so one of the reasons why the facility stays open colonel davis what's more dangerous the forty six individuals who might pose a threat if they're released or they were towards a bigger threat to the united states i should say those forty six individuals who might be released to commit crimes against the united states the future or just the

prison itself remaining open indefinitely i think it's the latter i think the charade gone on long enough that you know our justification for the end of the detainees the ones that aren't going to be transferred home or prosecuted in the military commission our theory has been that under the law of war we have the right to detain the enemy for the duration of the conflict the president said we're pulling out of afghanistan by the end of two thousand and fourteen so when we pull out that whatever whether you agree with the justification or not the justification evaporates and twenty fourteen would be they got to find a way to send these guys home prosecute them i believe in federal court or we're going to create a new lie to justify their detention we'll see what happens that was colonel morris davis law professor at howard university and lieutenant colonel barry wain guard at guantanamo bay defense attorney. and that does it for now but coming up at five pm more special coverage of one time open including new interviews with a former get more guard and chaplain so stick around for more on the stories we

covered go to youtube dot com forward slash r.t. america and check out our web site r t v dot com forward slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at sam sax stay tune prime interest this next. well. technology innovation and all the latest developments from around russia. that's huge you're covered. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harman welcome to the big picture.

i would rather as questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.t. question more.

good afternoon and welcome to prime interest i'm perry i'm boring and i'm bob english let's get to our headlines. eric holder is looking into market raiding the f.b.i. announced it's finally looking into an issue that has been all too apparent to traders for gear is namely the government's key economic announcements are awaited still being elite black boxes are supposed to embargo information until be and balance but you know unfortunately these uncle sam and your black boxes well they're about as useful as a screen door on a submarine only last friday the big monthly jobs number was leaked three seconds early enough time to make tens of millions of dollars all in each of us and speaking of economic growth.