Uruguay's Mujica: Guantanamo turned inmates 'halfway into vegetables'
Uruguay's Mujica: Guantanamo turned inmates 'halfway into vegetables'
Wed Feb 25, 2015 5:43pm EST
By Malena Castaldi
MONTEVIDEO (Reuters) - Six former Guantanamo Bay prisoners sent to Uruguay as part of a push by President Barack Obama to close the U.S. military's prison camp in Cuba were "turned halfway into vegetables" during their detention, outgoing President Jose Mujica said on Wednesday.
In an interview four days before his predecessor Tabare Vazquez takes office, Mujica said the six men lacked the strength to learn Spanish and integrate.
"These people are destroyed," Mujica said. "They could be here for two years and they won't understand a goddamn thing, because even though you want to teach them Spanish, they lack the inner strength, the will to move on with their lives. They have been turned halfway into vegetables."
Mujica, a former leftist guerrilla who was himself jailed during a 1973-85 military dictatorship, has called Guantanamo Bay a "human disgrace."
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