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Afghans Call for Release of 47 From Guantánamo
CARLOTTA GALL
New York Times
June 14, 2006
KABUL , Afghanistan, June 14 - An Afghan government delegation to GuantánamoBay said today that about half of the 94 Afghans still being held there were not guilty of serious crimes and should be released.
The remainder, including several high-level members of the former Taliban government, should be tried in Afghan courts, said the leader of the delegation, Abdul Jabar Sabit, a legal adviser to the Interior Ministry.
"The delegation concluded that some of the detainees should not stay longer in prison on the basis of the allegations against them and they must be returned to their country," Mr. Sabit, a former prosecutor, said at a news briefing. "We want to assure our people that the detainees will return to the country."
The officials said the Afghan detainees were not being held in bad conditions, and during private interviews, without the presence of American guards or officials, only one or two detainees had complaints. "The conditions were humane," Mr. Sabit said.
The nine-member delegation, consisting of representatives of the Interior, Defense and Justice ministries and National Security officials, made a 10-day visit to Guantánamo at the end of May to interview the Afghan detainees, establish whether they really were Afghan and work on plans for their return home.
President Hamid Karzai and President Bush agreed in May 2005 that the Afghan detainees would be returned to Afghanistan when Afghan-run facilities could be prepared and personnel trained to handle them.
Gen. Abdul Salaam Bakhshi, chief of Kabul's main prison, said today that it would still take months to prepare for the return of the detainees, but that those whose crimes were not serious could be returned and released "soon."
Mr. Sabit said the government delegation had already interviewed and drawn up a list of detainees who could be released immediately. The remainder, charged with more serious crimes, would be returned to face the Afghan judicial process. The American military is financing the refurbishment of a wing of Pul-i-Charkhi prison, the large Russian-built prison on the eastern side of the capital, to house some 650 detainees from Guantánamo and Bagram airbase, and is training prison personnel to take charge of the detainees. The prison is expected to be ready by the spring of 2007.
It has not yet been decided what kind of judicial process the detainees would face on their return, but under consideration are Afghan military tribunals or trials in civilian courts run by the National Security Directorate, which has jurdisdiction over terrorism and other serious crimes.
An American official in Kabul said that the detainees proposed for release could go into the peace and reconciliation program far sooner than next spring. Under the program, former Taliban members are allowed to return home under a guarantee from their community that they do not fight the government.
"The sooner we can get them back and into the reconciliation process the better," the official said, asking not to be named because the negotiations with the Afghan government are still taking place.
Afghan officials have visited Guantánamo before and secured the release of a few prisoners, but this was the first comprehensive survey of all the Afghan detainees.
The detainees were dispersed through the five camps that make up Guantánamo, and many were in the more lenient camp, where they even had access to television and radio, Mr. Sabit said. Those who had broken prison rules were under more severe regimens. The delegation had asked for all the Afghan detainees to be placed together in one block, Mr. Sabit said.
The American-led coalition in Afghanistan announced that two coalition soldiers had died Tuesday as a broad offensive against Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan was beginning. OperationMountain Thrust will involve 11,000 troops from Canada, Britain, Holland and American troops, an American military spokesman said.
"This is not just about killing or capturing extremists," the spokesman, Col. Tom Collins, said at a news briefing in Kabul. "We are going to go into these areas, take out the security threat and establish conditions where government forces, government institutions, humanitarian organizations can move into these areas and begin the real work that needs to be done."
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