GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - An Afghan detainee was dragged from his cell to his first pretrial hearing at Guantanamo on Wednesday, then refused to participate, telling the judge he felt "helpless."
Mohammed Kamin joined a growing detainee boycott of the war-crimes trials at the Guantanamo Bay Navy base in southeast Cuba. The military judge, Air Force Col. W. Thomas Cumbie, said Kamin tried to bite and spit on a guard on the way to the courtroom.
So he didn't feel completely helpless ... | In his first public appearance since arriving at Guantanamo in 2004, Kamin wore a heavy beard and the orange prison uniform reserved for noncompliant prisoners, his ankles shackled above his sneakers.
Kamin is accused of placing missiles near U.S.-occupied areas in Afghanistan.
I'm trying to figure out how he was taken alive. Must be our good nature ... | He allegedly trained as an al-Qaida operative in 2003 and spied on American military bases before he was captured later that year. He denied having any connection with al-Qaida or the Taliban and said the charges against him are false. "The trials are yours, the courts are yours. How can I trust you? I don't expect anything good from you," Kamin said through a Pashto translator. "I am helpless. You have the force."
"If'n I wuz back home I'd have the force!" | As the judge asked whether he understood his rights, Kamin said he put his trust only in Allah. "I wait for his decision, that is enough," he said.
He said we should hang you. | Kamin became the sixth detainee to announce a boycott of the war-crimes trials. Only one inmate, Canadian Omar Khadr, is fully cooperating with his defense team. If convicted, Kamin faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. |