Detainees’ families carry on without word

598 at U.S. base in Cuba have not been charged or given lawyers

? For relatives of the 598 detainees at this remote outpost, life goes on without their men, and without any idea how long their husbands and sons will be imprisoned.

Rasul Kudayev’s fiancee in Russia married someone else. Mamdouh Habib’s wife and four children fend for themselves in Australia. Mourad Benchellali’s father in France wonders if he will see or hear from his son again.

Egyptian-born Australian Mamdouh Habib, right, his wife, Maha, and two of their children are seen in this undated file photo. Habib is one of 598 detainees being held at the U.S. military base in Cuba.

“The detainees’ families are going on with their lives during the day, but at night they’re dreaming of their sons,” said Najeeb al-Nauimi, a lawyer and former Qatari justice minister who argues the detainees should be returned.

The detainees come from 43 nations and are suspected of links to the al-Qaida terror network and Afghanistan’s fallen Taliban regime. The first of the men were flown to this desolate U.S. military base in Cuba in January.

After eight months, they have not been charged or allowed to see lawyers.

The detainees can communicate with relatives only through mail delivered by the U.S. Postal Service or the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is the only independent group allowed to see the suspects.

Chellali Benchellali, reached by telephone at his home in Venissieux, France, said he and his wife had stopped getting cards from their son Mourad, one of at least six French prisoners at Guantanamo.

Mourad told his parents last year he was leaving to “learn about religion” in Arab countries. Then they received a postcard saying he was at Guantanamo.

“His morale was low, he said in the postcard,” Benchellali said. Since then, “it’s been silence.”

Heavy burden

Uncertainty is taking its toll on both the families and detainees. Four detainees tried to kill themselves in July and August, said Army Lt. Col. Joe Hoey.

The families were not notified of the attempts: “That is not within our radar scope,” Capt. Al Shimkus, a surgeon at the base, said Thursday.

He said 57 detainees suffered from psychological disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, including 30 that are on medication to fight depression and anxiety.

Al-Nauimi, speaking by telephone from Australia, said he had copies of 80 postcards the men wrote to their families.

“Some of the detainees have told their families they won’t be writing anymore and will see them in heaven,” said al-Nauimi, who has copies of 80 postcards. “One man told his family that guards had told him he would be buried in Guantanamo.”

The family of Rasul Kudayev has moved on in his absence. His mother, Fatimat Tikayev, has taken a new job as a nurse. She said her son’s fiancee married another man.

Tikayev, who lives in the southern Russia city of Khasanya, said her son went to Kyrgyzstan to become a wrestler in 1999. She was reached by telephone from Moscow, along with her son’s friend, Zeytun Sultanov, who said Kudayev went to the former Soviet republic to escape the draft.

“Rasul didn’t want to serve even in the Russian army because he didn’t accept violence or military uniforms,” his mother said.

Sultanov said his friend “always wanted to study abroad” and that “America was his highest dream.”

‘Legal black hole’

While some families hold out hope for America’s judicial system, others have taken their cases to other courts.

The lawyer for a British Taliban suspect urged a panel of British judges Tuesday in London to order his country’s government to intervene.

Attorney Nicholas Blake said Britain was obligated by its commitment to human rights to urge the United States to either release Ferroz Abbasi, 22, or charge him and give him access to a lawyer.

“Guantanamo is a sort of legal black hole,” Judge Robert Carnwath said after Blake described detainees’ lack of access to the courts.

In Australia, meanwhile, Maha Habib is watching her children grow up without their father, Mamdouh Habib, 47, who was captured by U.S. forces in Pakistan in October on suspicion of links to al-Qaida. His wife denies the allegation.

A postcard sent to the couple’s eldest son, Ahmed, listed Habib’s detainee designation as JJJFFA. With an 80-cent stamp, it was mailed to Australia by U.S. officials in Washington.

The only other contact Maha Habib has had with her husband an Australian who also holds Egyptian citizenship was a letter sent via the Red Cross in April.