A former prisoner’s story of mistreatment at the hands of Ron DeSantis made headlines. But The New York Times found no evidence to back it up.
Nearly a year ago, as Ron DeSantis’s political stock was rising, a former Guantánamo Bay detainee came forward with a stunning claim: Before he was Florida’s governor, as a young Navy lawyer, Mr. DeSantis had taken part in a forced feeding of a hunger striker at the notorious American prison, and laughed as he did so.
The detainee, Mansoor Adayfi, said he was tied to a chair, crying and screaming as tubes were shoved down his throat and cases of the dietary supplement Ensure were pumped into his stomach.
As the ordeal drew to an end, Mr. Adayfi added, he was approached by Mr. DeSantis and, “he said, ‘You should eat.’ I threw up in his face. Literally on his face.”