|
 Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi said the prisoners
had been released from a detention facility near the Afghan capital,
Kabul, and would be sent back to their respective home areas
throughout Afghanistan.
The U.S. embassy called it a "deeply regrettable" move that ran
counter to a 2012 agreement on detainees.
"The Afghan government bears responsibility for the results of its
decision," the embassy said in a statement.
Abdul Shakor Dadras, head of the Afghan board charged with reviewing
the prisoners' cases, said their detention had been unjustified from
the outset, despite information put forward by the United States.
"We could not find any evidence to prove that these 65 people are
criminals, according to Afghan law," Dadras told Reuters Television.
"I believe the release of these 65 people will benefit the Afghan
nation, and it will benefit the American nation and American
government."
The prisoners were transferred to Afghan authority last year as part
of the U.S. and NATO transition out of Afghanistan. A coalition of
foreign forces has been battling the Taliban since the Islamist
group was ousted in 2001.
The fate of another 23 prisoners who the United States contends
should not be released is being examined by the Afghan government,
the U.S. official said.
The U.S. military has said the released men should be tried in
Afghan courts.
"Detainees from this group of 65 are directly linked to attacks
killing or wounding 32 U.S. or coalition personnel, and 23 Afghan
security personnel or civilians," the U.S. military said in a
statement.
A U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
the United States had provided Afghan officials with "hundreds of
pages" of what he described as "hard evidence" or investigative
leads against the prisoners.
Some of the detainees, he said, had been linked by biometric data to
the production or placement of improvised explosive devices (IEDs),
sometimes through fingerprints left on adhesive tape used to
assemble homemade bombs.
[to top of second column] |
MORE TENSION BETWEEN KABUL, WASHINGTON
The detainees have become one more issue fuelling tension in
U.S.-Afghan ties ahead of a presidential election in April and the
planned pullout of most foreign troops by the end of the year.
The Obama administration has been pressing Afghan President Hamid
Karzai for months to sign a bilateral security agreement with
Washington that would allow some U.S. troops to stay beyond that
deadline.
The United States says the prisoners released on Thursday could now
pose a threat to Afghan civilians.
Last week, the United Nations said that civilian deaths had
increased in 2013, as fighting intensified between government forces
and insurgents. The U.N. said that bombs accounted for a third of
the total civilian death toll.
While U.S. officials have said that U.S. forces would try to kill or
capture the men if they took up arms against them, it remains
unclear if U.S. or coalition forces would try to apprehend or target
them pre-emptively.
(Writing by Missy Ryan; editing by Paul Tait and Ron Popeski)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
