|
<< Back
Gitmo detainees' ages vary widely A list of all those held at GuantanamoBay shows a range from teens to nearly 90.
Ben Fox
Associated Press
May 17, 2006
SAN JUAN , Puerto Rico -- He has a flowing white beard, can't hear or see very well and, according to his lawyer, uses a walker to hobble around the GuantanamoBay detention center.
Haji Nasrat Khan is the oldest detainee at GuantanamoBay, according to a newly released list of all those who have been held at the isolated prison on a U.S. Navy base in southeastern Cuba, perched above the Caribbean Sea.
Khan, an Afghan who the military says is 71 but may be several years older, exemplifies the striking diversity of Guantanamo detainees past and present as identified by the list, which the Pentagon released Monday to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
"I met him one time and came out of there thinking, `Why is this old man here?' " said Peter Ryan, a lawyer whose firm represents Khan and 14 other Afghans at Guantanamo.
The list provides the first full official accounting of all those who have been held by the military in Guantanamo on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. The document provides the names, hometowns and dates of birth of 759 current and former detainees.
They range from teenagers to an Afghan, now released, who was nearly 90 and was reportedly referred to as "al-Qaeda Claus" by interrogators. Their hometowns are from all over -- including the holy Muslim city of Mecca; Lyon, France; and Baton Rouge, La.
The military now holds about 480 detainees at Guantanamo following a series of releases and transfers that began in October 2002, nearly 10 months after the detention center opened.
An additional 136 detainees have been approved for transfer or release, but the timing depends on when their home countries agree to accept them and whether they can assure the U.S. the men will be treated humanely, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler said.
Among those who left were Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and taken to Guantanamo, where U.S. authorities discovered he was born in Louisiana and was therefore an American citizen. He was transferred to a military brig in South Carolina and released to his family in Saudi Arabia in 2004 after the Justice Department said he no longer posed a threat to the U.S.
Two Afghans who were younger than 18 when they arrived are no longer at the detention center, while a third who was still there in the summer of 2004 would no longer be a minor. Peppler said there now is no one younger than 18 at the camp.
<< Back
|
