Officials would not say why they had not earlier reported the Cuba camp incident, which they categorised as “selfinjurious behaviour”, aimed at getting attention rather than committing suicide.

The incidents came in the same year that the camp suffered a rash of suicide attempts after Major-General Geoffrey Miller took command of the prison with a mandate to get more information from the detainees accused of links to al-Qaeda or the ousted Afghan Taleban regime. From August 18 to August 26, the 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves with clothing and other items in their cells. Ten detainees made a mass attempt on one day — August 22.

US Southern Command described it as “a co-ordinated effort to disrupt camp operations and challenge a new group of security guards from the just-completed unit rotation”.

Guantanamo officials classified two of the incidents as attempted suicides and informed reporters. But they but did not previously release information about the mass hangings. They were mentioned casually during a visit this month by three journalists, but officials immediately denied that there had been a mass suicide attempt. Efforts to get details brought a statement, with some clarifications yesterday by military officials at Guantanamo Bay and US Southern Command.

Alistair Hodgett, at the Washington office of Amnesty International, said: “When you have suicide attempts or so-called self-harm incidents, it shows the type of impact indefinite detention can have, but it also points to the extreme measures the Pentagon is taking to cover up things that have happened in Guantanamo. What we’ve seen is that it wasn’t simply a rotation of forces but an attempt to toughen up the interrogation techniques and processes.”

Officials said yesterday that they differentiated between a suicide attempt in which a detainee could have died without intervention, and a “gesture” that they considered to be aimed only at getting attention.

General Jay Hood succeeded General Miller as the camp’s commander last year. He said that the number of incidents had dropped since 2003, when the military set up a psychiatric ward. In 2003 there were 350 “self-harm” incidents, including 120 “hanging gestures.” Last year there were 110 self-harm incidents. Of the 23 men who tried to hang or strangle themselves in the 2003 protest, two required hospital treatment.

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