Former Army Capt. James "Youssef" Yee, a Muslim chaplain, said Saturday he suspected despair was at the root of the suicides by men who had likely been held for nearly five years.

"It was only a matter of time, really, " Yee said by telephone from near his last post, Fort Lewis, Wash. "They reached a place of helplessness and hopelessness to commit suicide and bring change for the other prisoners."

Once word of the deaths reached an international audience, he said, the United States would find itself in "a very touchy situation" that could touch off "outrage around the Muslim world" - perhaps ameliorated by a display of Islamic sensitivity to the death and funeral rites.

Toward the end of his 2002-2003 tour at Guantánamo, Yee was arrested on suspicion of mishandling classified documents at the base but was never convicted of the charges. He left the military with an honorable discharge.

But while at the base, he wrote in his memoirs, he and other Muslim military members prepared plain wooden coffins for any detainee who should die, in keeping with Islamic burial rites, and wrote verses on the side, in keeping with tradition.

THE GRIM DISCOVERY According to Harris, an "alert" guard noticed one of the men had hanged himself in his cell, shortly after midnight, and was "unresponsive and not breathing." He said the guard tried to help the man, and guards checked on the other detainees, finding two others had also hanged themselves.

Medical teams tried to revive the men, Harris said, but were unsuccessful, and the three were pronounced dead by a physician.

The names of the dead were not released, but the State Department was notified and was in discussions with the governments of Saudi Arabia and Yemen. As Saudis and a Yemeni, the men who died were from among the majority of nationals at the prison camps.

Harris said the three men had not been charged and did not have attorneys, but were classified as "enemy combatants."

"They were enemy combatants, taken off the battlefield to Guantánamo, " he said. He classified one of the men as a "mid- to high-level operative in al Qaeda" and said another was part of the war in Afghanistan.

"These are dangerous men, not here by accident or happenstance, " Harris said.

POLICY ON BURIALS The camp has come under increasing international criticism, and military officials said the remains of the men were "being treated with the utmost respect." A cultural advisor was helping officials ensure that the bodies were being "handled in a culturally and religiously appropriate manner."

Harris said the camp has a fatwa, or religious edict, from a "reputable iman" that allows it to defer burial if the cause of death is in doubt. Islamic tradition calls for bodies to be buried within 24 hours.

Until Saturday's deaths, there had been no reported deaths among detainees since the Pentagon set up the detention and interrogation center in January 2002.

The closest call was in January 2004, when guards spotted a Saudi captive hanging in his cell and cut him down. He suffered brain damage and lapsed into a coma for months but ultimately regained consciousness. He has since been sent back to Saudi Arabia.

In May, military officials said at least 23 detainees had attempted suicide 41 times, including four captives who tried to kill themselves last month - three with drug overdoses, another by hanging. None of the four was seriously hurt.

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