It wasnt just him

Posted on: March 24, 2023 at 10:09:49 CT

But Mr Adayfi is not the only former detainee who says that they recognised Mr DeSantis from their time at the prison camp. Ahmed Abdel Aziz, a former prisoner who was released after 13 years without being charged with a crime and is currently back at home in Mauritania, also claims that Mr DeSantis witnessed the force-feeding at Guantanamo. Although he did not take part in the hunger strike himself, Mr Aziz tells The Independent that he witnessed “dozens” of force-feeding sessions in 2006 himself, and it was not uncommon for large groups of camp staff to watch them from the side.

“Sometimes a big bunch of people will come, sometimes two or three, sometimes the medical staff would come alone with the guards. Among them was this man,” he says, referring to Mr DeSantis

“He was not there all the time,” he says. “He was watching. He cannot stop it, he doesn’t have the authority, but he could stand against that or write to his higher-ups, to Washington, to other departments and tell them what’s going on.”

Like Mr Adayfi, Mr Aziz says doesn’t remember exactly when he realised the lawyer he knew from Guantanamo was Mr DeSantis, but he dates it roughly to a few years ago, when one of his friends sent him a picture. "As soon as I saw his picture I know him very well because he spent a long time there, maybe six months or eight months,” he says. “Most of the people in there, once we see them, we don’t forget them,” he adds.

“I’m not trying to say DeSantis was giving orders to the force-feeding. I didn’t see him giving orders to the guards, and I don’t think he was in a position to give orders to the guards. But he was there watching. He knows about everything – about the hunger strike, the torture, the abuse in the camps. And his job was to ensure that we were treated humanely,” he says.