Taliban extremists condemned an Afghan inmate's death at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp as a "clear indicator" of US human rights violations and "brutal behaviour," US-based monitors said Saturday. Awal Gul, who was held at Guantanamo for nearly nine years over alleged links to the Taliban and al Qaeda collapsed and died Tuesday of "apparent natural causes" after exercising on an elliptical machine, the US military said this week.
In a statement posted on its website in Pashto on Friday and in English on Saturday, the Afghan Taliban called Gul an "eminent commander" and blamed his death on the "bestiality of the American rulers," according to SITE Intelligence Group monitors. The Taliban denounced the continued existence of the Guantanamo Bay prison, more than one year after US President Barack Obama's promised deadline to close the site where 173 "war on terror" suspects remain without charge or trial.