According to a televised report, in response to a question regarding a former Guantanamo Bay inmate who alleged that DeSantis watched him being force-fed, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis became hostile with a reporter during a presser in Israel last Thursday.
Mansoor Adayfi, a former inmate who says he recognized DeSantis from over two decades ago after seeing a photo of him on Twitter, has had his accusations vigorously refuted by DeSantis.
Earlier this year, in an appearance with British media reporter Piers Morgan, DeSantis nervously reacted to the claim, stating it was incorrect.
The Florida Governor said it wasn’t true and he didn’t have the authority to authorize the forced feeding. He said there might have been someone higher ranked that would have done it if a prisoner was dying.
According to a report, DeSantis worked as a Navy lawyer before joining politics, initially at the U.S. jail at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and Iraq.
Mansoor Adayfi, a former Guantánamo detainee, claims that DeSantis watched him being tortured and force-fed and that other detainees have corroborated his claims.
According to Adayfi, as he was screaming and yelling because he couldn’t breathe, Desantis’ reaction was to laugh.
He didn’t have any active involvement in the force-feeding, and he didn’t see him giving the guards any specific instructions. He was a monitor.
After 14 years and seven months in jail without charges, Adayfi was finally released to Serbia in 2016.
Then-US Representative DeSantis (R-FL) admitted to authorizing force-feeding in an interview with CBS Miami in 2018, saying he was a legal advisor.
Desantis said the detainees would use all means necessary to carry out jihad. Given their confinement, options were restricted. Hunger strikes were among the tactics they employed. Three inmates committed suicide by starvation.
DeSantis claimed the activities at the time were legal. The commander would ask how to control the hunger strikes, and it was the lawyer’s role to say they could force-feed the detainees and then show the commander the rules for the process.
