The transcript, obtained by The Daily Beast, shows the 30-minute production – called "The Guantanamo Candidate" – goes into detail about hunger-striking prisoners' allegations that DeSantis had been present at force-feeding and other torture at the notorious camp. DeSantis, who is running to become the Republican Party's presidential nominee, has vehemently denied any involvement.
Among allegations detailed in the transcript are those of a prisoner who said, “Officer DeSantis was one of the officers who oversaw the force-feeding and torture we were subjected to in 2006. The Guantanamo Candidate."
DeSantis was a junior Navy lawyer who had been assigned to Guantánamo as part of a legal team tasked with ensuring military personnel at the camp followed the law.
In April, DeSantis was asked about allegations and he exploded on a reporter.
"No no, no, all that's BS," he said.
"How would they know me? OK think about that. Do you honestly believe that's credible? So this is 2006, I'm a junior officer. Do you honestly think that they would've remembered me from Adam? Of course not."
The allegations made in the documentary echo those reported several times before – which has caused questions to be asked about why Showtime decided to cancel the screening, which had been scheduled for May 28. The decision to pull the plug was made a day after DeSantis declared his run for the presidency, The Beast reported.
Semafor reported that DeDe Lea, a Showtime lobbyist in D.C., had voiced worries about it.
The Daily Beast also said three people familiar with the production believed the decision to be politically motivated, which one calling it, “blatant corporate censorship for political gain.”
According to the transcript, more than one detainee said that DeSantis was “one of the officers who mistreated us.” He's called “a bad person” and “a very bad officer.”
Prisoner Mansoor Adayfi told Vice, “I cannot forget when he was there watching us with the force-feeding. You cannot forget that because those people left really bad scars in your soul.”
“As I’m looking at you now, I could see them standing behind the fence, watching and looking at us… like, look at each other… and were smiling,” said formerly suspected al Qaeda operative Mansoor Adayfiin, according to the transcript.
“While beating you, screaming and shouting and bleeding and like, throwing up and sh--ting on yourself and someone is smiling at you?” he continued. “You cannot forget that.”
Adayfi has spoken many times. In March this year, Harper's Magazine reported him saying a "good-looking" officer came in during the force-feeding and he claimed, "I’m here to ensure that you are treated humanely." And, “If you have any problems, if you have any concerns, just talk to me.”
He said he was grateful to finally have a person that might raise concerns, but it was just another game.
"What they were doing was looking for what hurts us more so they could use it against us," Adayfi said. "In 2006, when DeSantis was there, it was one of the worst times at Guantánamo. The administration, the guards, all of them were the worst. They cracked down on us so hard. When they came to break our hunger strike, a team came to us. The head of the team, he was a general. He said, 'I have a job. I was sent here to break your f---ing hunger strike. I don’t care why you are here. I don’t care who you are. My job is to make you eat. Today we are talking. Tomorrow there will be no talking.' The second day, they brought piles of Ensure and they started force-feeding us over and over again.
"And Ron DeSantis was there watching us," the Harpers interview with Adayfi continued. "We were crying, screaming. We were tied to the feeding chair. And he was watching. He was laughing. Our stomachs could not hold this amount of Ensure. They poured one can after another. So when he approached me, I said, 'This is the way we are treated!' He said, 'You should eat.' I threw up in his face. Literally on his face."
Rolling Stone's report of the documentary recalls a 2006 interview DeSantis did on a local CBS affiliate that a commanding officer asked him during the hunger strike, “How do I combat this?”
“Hey, you can actually force-feed,” DeSantis confessed. “Here’s what you can do. Here’s kind of the rules for that.”
See that video below or at the link here.
