UPDATE: A New York Times investigation published on Sept. 24, 2023 stated that reporters had been unable to confirm Mansoor Adayfi's claims that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was involved in prisoner maltreatment. "An examination of military records and interviews with detainees’ lawyers and service members who served at the same time as Mr. DeSantis found no evidence to back up the claims," the Times wrote. "The New York Times interviewed more than 40 people who served with Mr. DeSantis or around the same time and none recalled witnessing or even hearing of any episodes like the ones Mr. Adayfi described."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis blew up at a reporter in Jerusalem after he was asked about a former Guantanamo Bay detainee's allegations that he took part in torture while stationed there, but those questions are haunting him politically, a report claimed Friday.
DeSantis served as a judge advocate general for the U.S. Navy and was tasked with leading an investigation into the June 2006 deaths of three detainees found hanging by their necks.
Another former prisoner claims the future governor was present when he was force-fed by American service members, reported The Guardian.
While DeSantis has actively tried to play down his role in the notorious camp, barely mentioning it in his memoir "The Courage To Be Free," it's becoming a thorn in his presumed ambitions to become president, the Guardian said.
“There was a colonel and DeSantis," said Ahmed Abdel Aziz, who was a Mauritanian inmate at Camp Delta who claimed DeSantis witnessed his torture. "They were looking at each other and were just smiling."
Aziz claims DeSantis bent over him at one point to encourage him to give up his strike and start eating, and the former detainee said he threw up on him.
"Dirty things were perpetrated," he said. "He saw everything, and I guarantee you he never objected.”
DeSantis dismissed those claims as "such BS," saying there's no way Aziz could have remembered him 16 years later, according to The Guardian.
“Do you honestly believe that’s credible? So this is 2006. I’m a junior officer. Do you honestly think that they would have remembered me from Adam? Of course not. They’re just trying to get into the news because they know people like you will consume it because it fits your pre-ordained narrative.”
