 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. |