On the night of June 6, 2006, three detainees from the notorious Alpha Block of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay were found dead in their cells, having died “suddenly and violently.” The deaths were stated to be part of a coordinated effort of martyrdom, soldiers simultaneously committing suicide in the furtherance of their cause. Though the United States and its military stand by the official account of suicide by hanging, the soldiers at GITMO heard of a different scenario in which these men, one as young as 17, died by other  means. Scott Horton investigates these deaths as possible homicides in his riveting THE GUANTANAMO “SUICIDES.”
 
A year and a half after his tour of duty at Guantanamo Bay ended, Army Sergeant Joe Hickman defied orders not to contradict the official account and go public with what he saw the night of the “suicides.” From the existence of the Black Site, “Camp No” outside the prison compound where special interrogation was performed, to the conflict between many government agencies and branches of the military at GITMO, Horton’s is a story that cannot be missed. Please join us for a reading of journalism at its best.

Scott Horton Scott Horton is a contributing editor for legal and national security affairs at Harper’s Magazine and a lecturer at Columbia Law School. A life-long human rights advocate, Scott served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union. He is a co-founder of the American University in Central Asia, where he currently serves as a trustee.  As a lawyer, Scott was involved in some of the most significant foreign investment projects in the Central Eurasian region. Scott also recently led a number of studies of issues associated with the conduct of the war on terror, including major studies of the introduction of highly coercive interrogation techniques and the program of extraordinary renditions for the New York City Bar Association, where he has chaired several committees, including, most recently, the Committee on International Law.

He is also an associate of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, a member of the board of the National Institute of Military Justice, Center on Law and Security of NYU Law School, the EurasiaGroup and the American Branch of the International Law Association and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also the author of a recent study on legal accountability for private military contractors, Private Security Contractors at War. He appeared as an expert witness for the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee repeatedly over the last four years, testifying on the legal status of private military contractors and the program of extraordinary renditions, among other matters.  He is also a frequent commentator for MSNBC.

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