U.S. military officials confirmed Thursday that a guard at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay last January fired a "non-lethal round" to disperse detainees after one of them sought to climb a fence and others threw rocks at the guard tower.

No one was injured during the incident, which appears to be the first shooting involving rubber bullets in the 11-year history of the Guantanamo facility. Nonetheless, it has fueled claims by defense lawyers – denied by camp officials – that the  detainees have been engaged for weeks in widespread protests, including hunger strikes and refusing to sleep in their cells.

---

The conflicting claims about conditions come as the detention facility in Cuba – which began under President George Bush in 2002 – is once again in the spotlight. Congressional Republicans, led by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, on Thursday sharply criticized the Obama administration for flying the recently captured Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son in law, to New York to stand trial in federal court rather than sending him to Guantanamo.

Al-Qaida spokesman and bin Laden son-in-law captured

“When it comes to people like this ... we want them to go to Gitmo to be held in military custody for interrogation purposes," Graham said in a news conference.

But Obama administration officials say they have ruled out sending any more terror suspects to Guantanamo because it would undercut their intention to shut down the facility. On his first full day in office in January 2009, President Barack Obama vowed to close Guantanamo, but he has been blocked from doing so by Congress, leaving most of the 166 detainees remaining there in perpetual limbo – even though at least 55 of them have been publicly cleared for release by an administration task force consisting of U.S. intelligence agencies.

The shooting incident, first reported by the Miami Herald, occurred on the grounds of a new $744,000 soccer and recreation field that was opened last year and touted by base officials as an example of new and more permissive conditions at the facility. The new soccer field was featured in an NBC News report on Guantanamo last June.

Read more at The Isikoff Files

Navy Capt. Robert Durand, chief public affairs spokesman at Guantanamo, told NBC News in an email that on the afternoon of Jan. 2, the incident occurred "after a detainee attempted to climb the fence" in the new recreation field and a "small crowd of detainees began throwing rocks at the guard tower."

"After repeated warnings were ignored, the guard force was forced to employ appropriate crowd-dispersal measures, in accordance with standard operating procedures," Durand wrote.

In response to follow-up questions, Durand said that the measures involved the shooting of a "non-lethal round" consisting of "several small rubber balls with limited ability to penetrate skin and little ability to cause injury." One of these balls "hit a detainee," he added. (During a May 2006 disturbance at Guantanamo, guards fired pepper spray at detainees, Durand said.) 

Information only began to emerge in recent weeks when some of the detainees began informing their lawyers – whose communications with their clients are tightly regulated. One detainee, Bashir al-Marwalah, wrote his New York lawyers in a letter received  Feb. 22: "We are in danger. One of the soldiers fired on one of the brothers a month ago. Before that, they send the emergency forces with M-16 weapons into one of the brothers' cell blocks."

The letter, a copy and translation of which was obtained by NBC News,  further alleged that a copy of the Quran had been "desecrated" during a search the day before and that guards were going from "cell block to cell block" and taking away detainee possessions.

"Now they want to return us to the darkest days under Bush. They said this to us. Please do something." the letter stated. It then concluded: "We asked that this be announced to the media so that people know what the Obama administration is doing to prisoners now. All the brothers are now on a hunger strike in protest of mistreatment and the desecration of the Quran."

The claims in the letter have been echoed in the last few days by lawyers for other detainees , who have said their clients have told them about large-scale  hunger strikes – with some detainees "losing consciousness" and "coughing up blood."  The claims of widespread hunger strikes have been vigorously denied by Guantanamo officials, who say there are now seven who are doing so – about the same number as have for the past year. 

Pardiss Kebriaei, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said she spoke to one of her clients, Ghaleb Al-Bihani, also a Yemeni, by phone this week and he said he has refused food for a month.  "He's dropped 23 pounds, he’s a diabetic, and medical staff have told him his life is in danger," Kebriaei said. 

Kebriaei said her client told her that there is now a "mass hunger strike" in Camp 6 – the largest and most permissive of the camps at Guantanamo – and that all but two detainees are participating. In addition, she said,  the detainees are protesting in other ways – by refusing to sleep in their cells, instead taking their mats outside and sleeping there. The trigger for the protests appears to be new restrictions and more comprehensive searches of cell blocks  imposed by the new camp commander, Rear Adm. John Smith.

Durand, the Guantanamo spokesman, disputed the lawyers' claims across the board.

“In broad terms, what we are seeing is a coordinated effort by detainees and their attorneys to take routine camp events and create a false picture of conditions," he wrote in an email. "Every day, to some degree, there are a few hunger strikers, a few detainees who assault or threaten guards. To describe the current conditions in the camp as 'deteriorating' is patently false."

He added: "Detainees, their attorneys, family members and sympathetic organizations routinely attempt to gain sympathy for detainees in the media by initiating and spreading falsehoods regarding conditions of detention, allegations of abuse by guards, denial of medical treatment, abuse of the Quran and reports of mass unrest or hunger striking. These tactics have been employed off and on since Joint Task Force Guantanamo opened in 2002."

Read more from Open Channel:

• Iran was holding bin Laden son-in-law Abu Ghaith, US officials say
• North Korea threat of nuclear attack predictable but worrisome
• Prison costs: One of Chicago's priciest neighborhoods isn't what you'd expect

 

A Guantanamo detainee who died Saturday was a former hunger striker who had recently been placed in a disciplinary cell after splashing a guard with a "cocktail"-- typically containing urine, a U.S. military official tells NBC News. 

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating the death of the detainee, whose identity and country of origin will not be released until his family is notified, said Navy Capt. Robert Durand, a spokesman for the U.S. detention facility.

But Durand provided some new details about the detainee's death -- the ninth to occur at Guantanamo since the prison opened in early 2002 and the first since an Afghan prisoner committed suicide in May of last year.

---

The detainee was found unconscious in his cell in Camp 5 on Saturday afternoon and was taken to the Naval hospital at Guantanamo where efforts to revive him failed. There were no cuts on his wrist or any other obvious signs of self-inflicted wounds, Durand said.

The detainee also had no serious medical problems. He had participated in a hunger strike last spring but ended it in June and was examined as recently as Aug. 22 when he was at 95 percent of his body weight, Durand said.

He had "fairly recently" thrown the "cocktail" at a prison guard, causing him to be placed in a solitary cell at Camp 5, said Durand. 

Although the death occurred on Saturday, military officials did not announce it until Monday in order to give officials time to notify the host country and family members of the detainee. That process has not yet been completed, but officials decided to release some details Monday because of concerns that some visitors to the base-- such as defense lawyers -- would learn about it anyway, Durand said. 

Watch World News videos on NBCNews.com 

The Miami Herald reported that a pathology and mortuary team was brought to the base on Sunday to attend to the body. A Muslim imam was summoned in order to give the man Islamic rites.

The dead man’s remains will be returned home after an autopsy, the Navy said.

The detention camp was set up to hold non-American captives suspected of involvement with al-Qaida, the Taliban or other Islamic militant groups after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Of the 779 men held there, 167 remain.

Stay informed with the latest headlines; sign up for our newsletter

Two of the earlier deaths were from natural causes and six were designated as suicides, most of them by hanging.

NBC News staff and Reuters also contributed to this report.

More world stories from NBC News:

• Generation Y battles to shape Pakistan's future
• Agitator or hero? S. Africa's poor put faith in Malema
• 'Emergency red list' targets Syria's looted treasures
• Report: Coral in Caribbean, Fla. in sharp decline
• Militants: Terrorist designation adds to captured GI's 'woes'
• The Arab Spring is dead -- and Syria is writing its obituary
• Photographer returns to work after Afghanistan blast
• Smoking ban leaves Lebanese fuming
• Car crash politics: Laws don't touch rich in Thailand

Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

The Justice Department announced Thursday that it has ended a lengthy investigation into the CIA's interrogation and treatment of prisoners without bringing any criminal charges. 

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the investigation into the deaths of two suspected terrorists  who died in CIA custody -- one in Iraq and another in Afghanistan -- was ended without charges because "the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt." 

The two cases include the highly publicized case of Manadel al-Jamadi, who died in a shower stall at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq while in CIA custody.  Several U.S. soldiers, who were photographed with al-Jamadi's body, packed in ice inside a body bag, were later prosecuted and convicted in military courts for prisoner abuse. 

---

The investigation spanned more than four years. It began with an investigation into the CIA's destruction of videotapes of aggressive interrogations of terrorist suspects, but was later expanded to include the deaths of the two detainees. 

In all the Justice Department investigated the treatment of 101 detainees who been held in U.S. custody since 9/11. 

CIA Director David Petraeus issued a statement thanking everyone at the CIA who supported the Justice Departments investigations.  

In an apparent effort to put the incidents and investigations to rest, Petraeus added, "As intelligence officers our inclination of course is to look ahead to the challenges of the future rather than backwards at those of the past."

More from Open Channel:

• ·  S. African telecom firm helped Iran evade US sanctions, documents show
• ·  Vote on an iPad? Technology could supplant voter IDs at polls
• ·  One of the most dangerous cities in the US plans to ditch its police force
• ·  Navy sought to stifle concerns about radiation at ex-base, emails show
• ·  Drug ingredients made in China entering market with little oversight
• ·  Florida once again a battleground as rules tighten on voter registration
• ·  What ID do I need to vote in my state?

 

Follow Open Channel from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook

 

 

ZINTAN, Libya - Libya on Monday freed four officials from the International Court (ICC) whose detention since early June on spying allegations had plunged the interim government into its biggest diplomatic controversy since last year's revolution.

Australian lawyer Melinda Taylor and Lebanese-born interpreter Helene Assaf were held in the town of Zintan and accused of smuggling documents and hidden recording devices to Moammar Gadhafi's captured son Saif al-Islam. Two male ICC staff who were travelling with Taylor and Assaf stayed with them.

---

 The four were freed on Monday after an apology from the ICC, whose president, Sang-Hyun Song, traveled to Zintan for the release after weeks of pressure from the Hague-based court, the U.N. Security Council, NATO and the Australian government.

"I wish to apologize for the difficulties which arose due to this series of events. In carrying out of its duties (the ICC) has no intention to compromise the national security of Libya," Song told a news conference in the western town.

Taylor and Assaf emerged after the news conference from a small room where they had been waiting and were taken to another area where they ate lunch. They looked tired and were dressed in black Islamic robes with their hair partially covered, but were smiling. They did not respond to questions from Reuters.

The four were to leave for Europe on a Monday night flight arranged by Italy, the Italian ambassador in Tripoli said.

 

The BBC confirmed with a senior member of the Libyan attorney general's office that the ICC staff members would be leaving the country. The source, however, said they would be expected back in Libya for a ruling. 

"We expect them to come back for the hearing but if they don't, a ruling will be made in absentia," the source told the BBC.

Taylor had been sent to Libya to represent Saif al-Islam, whom the ICC wants extradited to face charges of war crimes allegedly committed during the NATO-backed revolt that toppled his father last year. Libya has so far refused to extradite Saif al-Islam, saying it would prefer to try him in its own courts.

Tunisia extradites former Gadhafi PM to Libya

"The agreement was that there would be a continuation of the negotiations with the ICC," Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel Aziz told the news conference.

"If the ICC wants to send another team they will have to send one that respects Libyan sovereignty."

Judicial experts say Saif al-Islam is unlikely to get a fair trial in Libya, where the arrests of the ICC officials only served to highlight the challenges the interim government faces in imposing its authority on the myriad militias who helped topple Gaddafi and are now vying for power.

The western mountain town of Zintan is effectively outside central government control. With Saif al-Islam in its custody, the Zintan brigade gained leverage in dealings with the Tripoli government as it tries to negotiate his fate with the ICC.

The arrest of the ICC officials also put the interim government in an awkward position where it was essentially negotiating a deal between his captors and the outside world.

Late last month, the ICC expressed regret to Libyan authorities in what seemed to come close to an apology designed to secure the release of its employees.

Reuters contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Sneak peek inside Olympic Village: 'Not a five-star resort'
• Former Gitmo prisoner: How I see America
• Texas student mauled by chimps in S. Africa undergoes 6 hours of surgery
• Masked 'goons' kill at least 17 in attacks on churches in Kenya
• Wimbledon mystery as police hunt missing tennis hawk Rufus
• Egypt, Mother of the World, turns new page; citizens await results
• Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir dies

Follow World News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

A new lawsuit seeks to force the U.S. government to make public “extremely disturbing” videotapes of a Saudi national whose abuse at the Guantanamo Bay prison has been called “torture” by a former Bush administration official.

The suit, filed in New York federal court on Monday, comes 10 years after the first prisoners in the United States’ global war on terror arrived at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. The prison, within a U.S. Navy base, was considered by Bush administration lawyers outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.

---

The controversial prison was ordered closed within a year by President Barack Obama when he took office, but stiff resistance in Congress over housing detainees in the United States and trying them in civilian courts has left most of 171 detainees in limbo as the base remains open.

Indeed, 46 of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay have been designated as too dangerous to be released at all by the Obama administration and have been assigned for indefinite detention without charges or trial. Through the years, 779 detainees have been incarcerated there with Bush releasing more than 500 and Obama 67.

“Sadly, Guantanamo is becoming a fixture,” Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has helped defend detainees, told msnbc.com. “We come to think that during wartime that there are these blips of decreased civil liberties, but eventually we restore ourselves to normalcy. That dynamic 10 years on is not happening now. …The president who so eloquently criticized it has accepted its existence.”

The Obama administration disputes that characterization. A State Department spokesman told NBC News that it has made clear that closing Guantanamo is in the interest of national security and is continuing its efforts to close the facility.

Benjamin Wittes, of the conservative-leaning Brookings Institute, has suggested that Guantanamo has changed since the Bush years.

"Alone among facilities used by the military to detain enemy forces in the war on terror," Wittes wrote, "detentions at Guantanamo are supervised by the federal courts in probing habeas corpus cases. Detainees there, unlike at any other detention facility, have access to lawyers. Their cases are followed closely by the press, and many hundreds of journalists have been to Guantanamo."

Harsh interrogation techniques
In their lawsuit filed Monday, Lawrence Lustberg and Sandra Babcock seek to shed light on the treatment of their client Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was captured in Afghanistan during the hunt for Osama bin Laden in 2001 and was whisked to Guantanamo Bay, where government investigators later identified him as a man who had planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

The case of Qahtani first came to light in 2005 when Time magazine published secret log files from Guantanamo that detailed harsh interrogation techniques on the Saudi suspect.

In February 2008, he was charged with war crimes and murder, but on May 11 of that same year those charges were dropped. The reasons at the time were not made public.

• Slideshow: Life goes on in Guantanamo

In 2009, a Bush administration official revealed the reason to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post:

"We tortured Qahtani," Susan J. Crawford said. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Now, Qahtani's attorneys, who have been to Guantanamo, seek to shine more light on what happened nearly a decade ago.

"It’s important at this juncture for the public to have access to visual images of what happened at Guantanamo,” Babcock told msnbc.com. “I think people have become desensitized to the plight of the men that came to Guantanamo. They don’t see them as human anymore. It’s easy to distance yourself to what happened."

• From Oct. 2006: Battle over tactics raged at Gitmo

The tapes remain classified, according to Lustberg and Babcock, but the lawyers have viewed them and say the government should release them.

"I can’t tell you what’s in the tapes," Babcock told msnbc.com, citing their secrecy. "But I can tell you that they are extremely disturbing and I think they could change the tenor of the debate in this country about our nation’s interrogation and detention practices."

Lustberg points out that "the Army field manual still allows our government to engage in some of the same abuse that was visited on Qahtani. We think that when this sort of thing goes on, detainee abuse should continue to be a robust debate."

The lawsuit says Qahtani's treatment included severe sleep deprivation, 20-hour interrogations and isolation. It also cites threats by military dogs, exposure to extreme temperatures and religious and sexual humiliation.

A spokeswoman for government lawyers told The Associated Press that there would be no comment. 

Other cases at Guantanamo are still pending. Five prisoners accused of helping to organize the Sept. 11 case are expected to be arraigned at the base in 2012 in what would be the most high-profile U.S. war crimes tribunal since the World War II-era. The five, including the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are facing charges that include murder and could be sentenced to death if convicted.

There is no judge yet in the Sept. 11 case.

 

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• First Read: A New Hampshire surprise?
• Donate your body? Fat people not wanted
• The NBA owner who wants to be Russia's president
• Icebreaker carves path towards cut-off Alaska city
• Paternos donate $100,000 to Penn State
• As home prices fall, more borrowers walk away
• Memo: Train operators can't sleep on the job