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His medical records also show him as a “morbidly obese” diabetic with related circulatory and blood-pressure problems.
Leaked Guantánamo documents, obtained from Wikileaks, show the military profiled him for years as an al-Qaida insider who worked as a Sudan-based courier for Osama bin Laden before he moved to Afghanistan.
But as late as 2008 a military intelligence report made no mention of his mental illness, or frequent psych ward hospitalization as the prison considered his “intelligence value” to the United States seven years after his capture. The report simply called his health “fair,” cast him as a “low threat” prisoner, meaning he was compliant with his guards. It advised against his release, in part, because he “resisted cooperation with interrogators and remains largely unexploited” — meaning he had yet to spill any al-Qaida secrets.
If released, it warned, he was likely to threaten the United States or its interests.
To questions of whether he could not be used by the enemy, strapped into a bomb belt and dispatched as a suicide bomber, Cowan points to an email her firm got from a Justice Department lawyer in March.
Idris, it says, careens between “periodic lucid episodes” and “disorganized behavior such as wearing underwear on his head, whispering to himself … laughing and singing out of context.” Other captives had grown weary of him, so he was at the prison hospital being treated for a foot infection.
Plus, across nearly a dozen years at Guantánamo, his court records show, he has heard voices, suffered crying jags and nightmares — but he has never been suicidal.
“Disorganized” is an aspect of his schizophrenia, according to the report, meaning he is unable to carry out routine activities.
Recently, when his attorneys arranged a call to speak with him from New York, guards took him to a room and sat him before a telephone. The receiver was off the hook, his lawyers were waiting on the line.
He just sat there, too confused to put the phone to his ear.
“He’s not capable of the complex thought processes, which would be necessary to do any sort of day-to-day activities,” Cowan says, “let alone any more of that.”
So, the motion says, it’s time to send him home to a family that will care for him in a country that has little resources or commitment to mental healthcare, meaning he won’t get any better.
It’s unclear how the Obama administration will respond to the argument. Three years ago, a federal task force approved Idris’ repatriation to his homeland “subject to appropriate security measures.” But Congress has blocked all administrative releases. Absent a court order, Idris can’t go anywhere.
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