Yaser Esam Hamdi - 2002 Memos

2002 Memos

Shortly after September 26, 2002, a Gulfstream jet carrying David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, John A. Rizzo, William Haynes II, two Justice Department lawyers, Alice S. Fisher and Patrick F. Philbin, and the Office of Legal Counsel's Jack Goldsmith flew to Camp Delta to view Mohammed al-Kahtani, then to Charleston, South Carolina to view Jose Padilla, and finally to Norfolk, Virginia to view Hamdi.

Upon viewing Hamdi curled in a fetal position in his cell, Goldsmith wrote "it seemed unnecessary to hold a twenty-two year old foot soldier in a remote wing of a run-down prison in a tiny cell, isolated from almost all human contact, and with no access to a lawyer."

There were 91 pages of 2002 memos drafted by officers at the Naval Consolidated Brig, Charleston, which did not become public until six years later. The memos indicate that officers were concerned that the isolation and lack of stimuli was driving Yasser Hamdi, José Padilla and Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri insane.