This focus sheet gives numerical information which supports claims about the harshness of the facility, suicide attempts, secret CIA custody and those who remain detained without charge.

  • 11 January 2008 marks 6 years since the first detainees were transferred to Guantanamo.
  • Nearly 800 detainees have been held in Guantanamo.
  • Approximately 300 detainees of around 30 nationalities were still held without charge or trial in November 2007. Nearly 100 of them were Yemenis.
  • Approximately a quarter of those still held have been determined as eligible for release or transfer by US authorities.
  • Only one Guantanamo detainee has been convicted by military commission David Hicks in March 2007. He pleaded guilty to "providing material support for terrorism" under a pre- trial agreement that ensured his release from US custody after five years and return to his native Australia to serve a nine-month prison term.
  • As of November 2007, 3 detainees had been charged for trial by military commission.
  • By November 2007, approximately 470 detainees had been released from Guantanamo to other countries since 2002, including Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, France, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom and Yemen.
  • Nearly 80 per cent of those detained are believed to be held in isolation in Camp 5, Camp 6 or Camp Echo.
  • Camp 6 was built to house 178 detainees. It is the harshest facility. Detainees are confined for a minimum of 22 hours a day in individual steel cells with no windows to the outside.
  • At least 4 of those still held were under 18 years old when taken into custody.
  • At least 4 men are reported to have died in Guantanamo as a result of suicide. Dozens more suicide attempts have been reported.
  • Detainees have been taken into custody in more than 10 countries before being transferred to Guant?namo without any judicial process.
  • An analysis of around 500 of the detainees concluded that only 5 per cent had been captured by U.S. forces; 86 per cent had been arrested by Pakistani or Afghanistan-based Northern Alliance forces and turned over to US custody, often for a reward of thousands of U.S. dollars.
  • 14 detainees were transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006 after they had been held incommunicado in secret CIA custody for up to 4 and a half years; 4 other men have been transferred to Guantanamo since.
  • An unknown number of people have been held in secret CIA custody. At least three dozen people believed to have been held in secret remain unaccounted for, their fate and whereabouts unknown.
  • Hundreds of people remain detained without charge, trial or judicial review of their detentions at the US air base in Bagram, Afghanistan.

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