A former Guantanamo prison camp inmate said on Friday that the treatment of prisoners there made suicide attempts "inevitable".
Shafiq Rasul, who spent nearly three years in the prison camp, told Sky News that although he was shocked over the deaths, "at the same time... something like that was going to happen. There were numerous suicide attempts while I was there. It happened right in front of me."
The US military said on Saturday that two Saudis and one Yemeni had hanged themselves with clothes and bed sheets. The three had taken part previously in extended hunger strikes and been force-fed. They all left suicide notes but no details were made public.
Rasul, a British citizen who was detained by US forces in Afghanistan on suspicion of fighting for the ruling Taliban, was released from Guantanamo in March 2004 without being charged.
He said that during his time in the camp he had "no rights, no communication with the outside world, no access to lawyers and was accused of being member of Al Qaeda and told I was the worst of the worst".
A US military statement has said that since the camp opened in 2002, 23 inmates have attempted suicide a total of 41 times, 29 of the times by hanging.
"? there were individuals who had just had enough, couldn't take any more, were going crazy, who would attempt to kill themselves," said Rasul.
