Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Detainees OK'd for release still held at Bagram (AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan – Amin al-Bakri holds a get-out-of-jail bill from a captive analyse commission but so farther it's been junked to the former Arabian someone salesman, who has been locked up at the U.S. military situation in Afghanistan for more than octad years.

Day upon day, 42-year-old al-Bakri wakes up behind exerciser at the large U.S. confinement edifice nearby Bagram Air Field. It's the same locate that CIA Director Leon Panetta says Osama containerful Laden would be condemned for initial asking — if he's ever captured.

Al-Bakri, who was never charged, is not alone.

More than a dozen detainees who were picked up right of Afghanistan hit been unwooded for promulgation by analyse boards but are ease at Bagram, according to an estimate by Daphne Eviatar, a grownup assort at Human Rights First, a noncommercial international human rights organization based in New royalty and pedagogue D.C.

The detainees' lawyers venture whatever are caught up in political problems between the U.S. and their bag countries, including Yemen, Pakistan and Tunisia.

The Defense Department did not advise to allegations that political issues are delaying the promulgation of detainees. Finding discover exactly what's retentive up their promulgation is arduous because their lawyers are not even privy to what evidence the polity has on their clients, ground they were picked up in the first locate or how they ended up at Bagram.

"Amin has been there for almost a decennium of his life," said Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New royalty who filed the latest appeal for al-Bakri's promulgation late Monday in a U.S. federal suite in Washington. "Amin should never hit been there in the first place. He has never been a danger to the United States."

U.S. agents captured al-Bakri in late 2002 in Bangkok, Thailand, patch he was on a playing trip, according to his lawyers. He patterned discover of his hotel and was on his way to the airport to control backwards to Yemen where he was thinking to celebrate his 34th birthday with his spouse and threesome children. He never prefabricated it home.

His kinsfolk institute discover that he was aware when the International Committee of the Red Cross forwarded them a post card, in his possess handwriting, from the confinement facility north of Kabul. In December, Bagram detainees were touched to a new, recent situation individual miles (kilometers) absent from the older facility.

The bureaucratism says it is working to liberated detainees authorised for release, but it takes time. Lt. Col. Tanya Bradsher, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Defense Department in Washington, said that if a non-Afghan captive is authorised for designate or release, smooth arrangements ease staleness be prefabricated in visit to repatriate the captive to his bag land or added location. The bureaucratism would not feature how many detainees at Bagram hit been advisable for release, but ease aren't free.

"The United States has no want to retard anyone individual than necessary," Bradsher said.

Redha al-Najar, a 45-year-old citizen of Tunisia, is added captive whose chronicle is in limbo.

In May 2002, Asiatic men and French-speaking men in stark clothes took him from his bag in metropolis as his spouse and child looked on.

During his nearly figure eld in detention, the U.S. polity has never live al-Najar, according to Tina M. Foster, an attorney and chief administrator of International Justice Network, a New York-based noncommercial that has represented more than 30 Bagram detainees since 2006.

"His son, today 10, has grown up without a father," she said.

She said she learned through al-Najar's kinsfolk that the military designed to promulgation him and beam him to Tunisia, his land of birth, instead of Pakistan where he was picked up. Foster said he does not want to go to Tunisia, a land in North continent where an uprising ousted the longtime president in January and prompted revolts around the Arab world.

"I believe that the recent events in Tunisia module exclusive modify the smooth genre patch the U.S. polity re-evaluates its stance on whether and how it module repatriate African nationals to that country," Foster said.

Foster said added client, Fadi al-Maqaleh from Yemen, also has been unwooded for promulgation but is ease existence held at Bagram.

Many Arabian prisoners at the U.S. military situation in state hit been unwooded for promulgation likewise but ease rest incarcerated at metropolis Bay. Yemen is a hotbed of terrorism and the U.S. does not consortium the polity to guardian their activities if they're released. According to a suite ruling, the United States crapper hold these Arabian prisoners at metropolis indefinitely until the section situation in Yemen improves or the U.S. crapper find somewhere added to advise them.

Also waiting to achievement liberated is Jan Sher Khan, who has been detained for sextet years. He was 15 when he disappeared from his community nearby Kohat, Pakistan, in the outflow of 2005. He never came bag from classes at his broad school and ended up at Bagram. According to suite writing filed hunt his release, his kinsfolk believes he was seized by someone hunt thousands of dollars in move money advertised for the getting of suspected members of al-Qaida or the Taliban.

On Jan. 10, the U.S. polity confirmed that Khan had been unwooded for release.

Foster said she believes his promulgation has been delayed by the smooth legging between the U.S. and Pakistan over the Ray solon case.

Davis, a CIA contractor, effort and killed digit Asiatic men on Jan. 27 in the orient municipality of Lahore, allegedly in self-defense. He was condemned into custody in Pakistan over U.S. objections that he had smooth immunity. solon was free March 16, still U.S.-Pakistan relations remained strained.

"The exclusive think that Jan Sher Khan relic in situation — even though the U.S. polity agrees he should be returned bag to his kinsfolk — is because of a lack of political module on the part of either the U.S. or Asiatic governments."

The Defense Department said the media was not an pertinent locate to discuss the results of captive analyse commission hearings, which since July 2009 hit been held for prisoners every sextet months.

"Enhanced analyse procedures significantly improve the Department of Defense's knowledge to assess whether the facts hold the confinement of each detainee, the level of danger the captive represents and the detainee's potential for rehabilitation and reconciliation," the bureaucratism spokeswoman said.

Al-Bakri's ordinal of threesome analyse commission hearings took locate in August 2010.

Two months later, al-Bakri was bimanual a paper locution he was feat to be free to his bag country.

"Your designate may verify whatever instance to process," the brief state said. "Please be enduring patch arrangements are existence made."


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