Gitmo detainees have been collecting unopened containers of food and beverages to give to victims of Haiti's earthquake, according to a lawyer for one of the detainees.
Lawyer Allison Lefrak told Time Magazine's Swampland blog what her client, detainee Ravil Mingazov, told her about the detainees' efforts.
"What our client was telling us is it seems so wasteful for all this food to be thrown away and with the Haiti relief mission next door it was common sense to ask to give it to them," Lefrak told me in a phone call today. Apparently, even unopened food and beverages are discarded. So far the camp guards have not been facilitating the donations, so they're starting to pile up, she added.
Lefrak told Swampland that she hopes the story is told so that people understand that not all detainees are "just a bunch of terrorists" and that they "have hearts too."
Lefrak's client Ravil Mingazov is a 42-year-old Russian citizen who has been held at Guantanamo for almost eight years. He is accused of traveling to Afghanistan to train with a terrorist group from Uzbekistan. According to U.S. documents he was arrested at a "safehouse" in Pakistan. Mingazov's habeas corpus hearing is in two weeks, Swampland reports.