DeSantis loses his cool with a reporter after being challenged over claims he witnessed torture while working at Guantanamo Bay
Amir Levy/Getty Images
- Ron DeSantis clashed with a reporter when questioned about Guantanamo Bay.
- DeSantis worked as a naval attorney at the base used to detain terror suspects.
- A former detainee claims DeSantis witnessed him being force fed.
Flordia Gov. Ron DeSantis was involved in a tetchy exchange with a reporter after being questioned about whether he witnessed detainees being tortured in Guantanamo Bay.
During a press conference in the Museum of Tolerance in West Jerusalem Thursday, DeSantis was questioned about a former detainee's claim that he watched as he was force fed while working as a naval attorney at the base.
"Do you honestly believe that's credible? It's ... 2006, I'm a junior officer, do you honestly think that they would've remembered me?" DeSantis responded angrily.
—Grant Stern (@grantstern) April 27, 2023
Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was used to hold detainees during the so-called "war on terror" in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
The UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross are among the organisations that have decried the treatment of inmates at Guantanamo Bay. Many say they endured systematic torture and abuse while being held there without charge. The US has denied the claims.
Mansoor Adayfi, a Yemeni citizen, was held at Guantanamo Bay for 14 years, and has told news outlets that DeSantis witnessed him being force fed during a hunger strike in 2006.
The UN has said that it regards the force feeding of inmates at Guantanamo as a form of torture. The US has denied this, saying the rights the prisoners have in peacetime didn't apply because the US was at war with terrorists, officials told NBC News at the time.
Adayfi in an op-ed for Al Jazeera in April described being strapped to a chair and force fed a protein drink through a tube inserted into his nose until he threw up.
"As I tried to break free, I noticed DeSantis's handsome face among the crowd at the other side of the chain link. He was watching me struggle. He was smiling and laughing with other officers as I screamed in pain," he wrote.
Two former detainees, as well as defense lawyers and base officials, have told The Washington Post that DeSantis had a "close up views" of disturbing incidents at the camp during his time there.
DeSantis was deployed to the base as a young naval lawyer. He has previously said that he advised in favor of the force-feeding program, but later backtracked.
—Jim DeFede (@DeFede) August 17, 2018
"So everything at that time was legal in nature one way or another," DeSantis told a CBS affiliate in 2018.
"So the commander wants to know, 'Well, how do I combat this?' So one of the jobs of the legal adviser be like, "Hey, you actually can force feed, here's what you can do. Here's kind of the rules of that.'
Yet as he gears up a possible bid for the presidency in 2024, DeSantis has sought to distance himself from alleged inmate abuse at Guantanamo, saying in an interview in March that he didn't have the authority to authorise force feeding at the base.
"There may have been a commander that would have done feeding if someone was going to die, but that was not something that I would have even had authority to do," he told Piers Morgan on Fox Nation.
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