Guantanamo inmate cut throat with fingernail - official

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - An inmate at the U.S. military prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay slit his throat with a sharpened fingernail last month, causing substantial bleeding but no threat to his life, camp officials said.

Navy Commander Andrew Haynes, deputy director of the guard force, said the incident occurred while the detainee was in the shower. Guards stopped the bleeding and the inmate was treated at the hospital and held for psychiatric observation for a week, camp medical officers said.

A camp doctor said it was a superficial injury but did require stitches. He said he had seen as many as 10 self-inflicted wounds over the past six months and the fingernail slashing was the most dramatic because of the blood loss.

Officials classified the incident as a suicidal gesture, meaning it required medical attention but the method of inflicting the injury was not likely to have caused death.

Four Guantanamo prisoners have committed suicide by hanging, three in June 2006 and one in May 2007. the deaths are still under investigation by the Navy Criminal Investigative Service.

Camp officials say suicide and self-inflicted injuries are tactics used by inmates and their leaders in their struggle to draw attention to their situation. Their lawyers and rights activists say the suicides are an expression of desperation from people jailed indefinitely by the United States without a right to challenge their detention.

The first captives arrived at Guantanamo after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. More than 300 are currently held at the prison, many of them in custody without trial for more than five years.