BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A man suspected of recruiting the "Lackawanna Six" attempted suicide at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he has been held for more than four years, authorities said. Juma Mohammed Abdul Latif Al Dosari, 31, gashed his arm and hanged himself from a ceiling fixture during a visit with his attorney, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan of New York City on Oct. 15, authorities said.
The head of the FBI in Buffalo would not comment on whether the suicide attempt would impact investigations by his office. He said Al Dosari is the subject of a continuing probe into who recruited and funded a group of young Yemeni-American men from Lackawanna, near Buffalo, who attended an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan in May 2001.
"We're aware of this suicide attempt, and we're trying to get more information on what happened," said Peter Ahearn, special agent in charge of the Buffalo office. In the past, Colangelo-Bryan has said Al Dosari, a native of Bahrain, has complained of brutality at the prison.
Al Dosari has not been charged criminally in the case of the Lackawanna Six, all of whom are serving prison sentences of between seven and 10 years after pleading guilty to federal charges. Federal agents and attorneys for at least two of the men have identified Al Dosari as one of the men who recruited Muslims from Lackawanna to travel to the camp. Al Dosari allegedly gave a fiery sermon in early 2001 at the Guidance Mosque in Lackawanna. In court papers filed in October 2004, an attorney for the U.S. Combatant Status Review Tribunals said the tribunal classified Al Dosari as an "enemy combatant" who was "a member of al-Qaida and affiliated with the Taliban militia in Afghanistan." He was arrested in Pakistan in late 2001.
The tribunal also said that Al Dosari had been questioned by Saudi Arabian authorities about the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 that killed 19 members of the U.S. Air Force. The court documents indicate that Al Dosari has denied any involvement with al-Qaida or terrorism. |