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The assembled dignitaries also signed a pledge at the ceremony, taking responsibility that Katel would cause no trouble in the future, a condition he said he'll have no trouble fulfilling. "Now I'm free. I don't care," Katel said. "I didn't do anything against the government before and I won't do anything now." Neither Katel nor the U.S. military would discuss the circumstances of his arrest. He said he was not mistreated during his detention, which American officials said lasted less than a year. Some Bagram detainees have been there for several years without any formal charge or evidence, and the deaths of two Afghan prisoners in 2002 led to prison abuse charges against several American troops. The secrecy under which prisoners have been held and their inability to challenge their detention has drawn condemnations from the U.N. and human rights groups. The Obama administration has made some changes at the prison. Last year, the Pentagon assigned all detainees a U.S. military official as a personal representative and set up new military review board to hear arguments for release. All the prisoners were moved last year into a new, $60 million facility next to the air field. "There has been some significant improvement," said Nora Niland, a human rights expert for the United Nations in Afghanistan. "The type of torture stories we were hearing about a few years ago, no longer exist in terms of Bagram." Still, critics say prisoners at Bagram should have more legal rights. Obama's administration still backs the Bush-era stance that the Bagram detainees
-- who number 645, according to a list submitted in January in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union
-- should not be allowed to challenge their indefinite detentions in U.S. courts as Guantanamo prisoners have done, arguing that Afghanistan is an active war zone with special dangers. More changes are coming for the U.S.-run Afghan prison. Last month, American forces started procedures to turn over responsibility for the facility to the Afghan government, a process a military spokesman says will take about a year. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said indefinite detentions are turning ordinary Afghans against U.S. and NATO forces and, by extension, his government. Karzai has called for steps to free Bagram prisoners being held without evidence, raising the possibility for the pace of releases to accelerate next year.
[Associated
Press;
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