Guantanamo transfers: None convicted
Three years after the US opened its prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, 65 detainees have been handed over to their home countries but none has been convicted of any crime.
About one-third of the 65 detainees whom the Pentagon sent to other governments have been released and the rest are awaiting trial or still in detention without charge.
Lawyers, officials and judicial sources in 10 countries where terrorism suspects were sent by the United States from its military prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, said they knew of no convictions yet among those transferred, although several trials are pending in countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
“What is clear to me is that my government is unable to charge them here and when they go abroad, there is not a shred of evidence to charge them there either. It looks like they got the wrong people,” Michael Ratner, an attorney for several Guantanamo detainees, said.
Key to prevention
Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Commander Flex Plexico said intelligence gleaned at Guantanamo Bay was key in preventing further terrorist attacks against the United States after September 11, 2001.
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A Guantanamo detainee sent |
Since detainees captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere by US forces were sent to Cuba in January 2002, the Pentagon says it has freed 146 detainees and sent 65 others to the custody of Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Britain, Australia, France, Russia and Morocco.
About 545 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay and one defence official told Reuters there was pressure inside the Bush administration to get more foreign governments to take over detainees from their countries.
Plexico said the United States did not track what happened to transferred detainees who were the responsibility of their own governments. But he said there was some risk in releasing prisoners and 12 were known to have “returned to the fight”.
No charges filed
About half of the 65 handed over to other countries were moved to Pakistan, which is holding them under that country’s security laws, Atif Ali Khan, a Pakistani lawyer representing 34 ex-Guantanamo Bay detainees, said.
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“It looks like they got the wrong people” Guantanamo detainees’ attorney Michael Ratner |
Khan said no charges had been filed against his clients, most of whom were being held at Adiala prison in Rawalpindi.
“They have been assured time and again they will be released soon, but nothing has happened,” Khan said in a telephone interview from Pakistan. “I think there is US pressure to keep them inside.”
Khan said he got special permission from the Pakistani government to visit the detainees, who complained of poor medical care and a shortage of water and food.
“They were taken care of better in Guantanamo Bay,” he said.
Torture concern
Human-rights groups are concerned some foreign governments will use the chance to torture detainees sent to their custody but President George Bush insisted at a news conference on Wednesday that the US safeguarded against this.
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Bush said the US will ensure |
“We seek assurances that nobody will be tortured when we render a person back to their home country,” he said.
The US government, led by State Department negotiators, sets conditions for transfer with foreign governments, including in some cases protections for the treatment of detainees.
Most of the Guantanamo detainees sent to European countries have been freed, with only a few possible cases pending, such as in France where two are being held after returning this month.
Refused passports
None of the nine suspects sent to Britain have been prosecuted there. All were questioned by anti-terrorism police and then released. Four have been refused passports.
The one Swedish detainee, Mahdi Ghazali, was freed in July 2004 and no action taken against him at home. Spain has also released its detainee.
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Court rulings have chipped away |
Five Moroccans were handed over in August and are still being tried on terrorism charges by a court in Rabat.
In Saudi Arabia, five Guantanamo Bay detainees are being held. In Kuwait, one detainee sent from Guantanamo is in state security police custody.
Seven Russians were released four months after their return. Australian Mamdu Habib has also been freed but authorities have him under close surveillance.
Two French citizens released by US authorities have been placed under official investigation in France, and a third ex-prisoner was released without charges last weekend, according to a French judicial source.