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 The inmates - all foreign nationals captured on battlefields
around the world - could be transferred to the U.S. court system or,
as a last resort, to the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, Brigadier
General Patrick J. Reinert told Reuters.
The quandary over what to do with the detainees held in a prison
near Bagram airfield, north of Kabul, has rekindled the outrage over
the U.S. policy of rendition in the early phases of the Afghan war.
In the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States,
suspected militants were abducted and held in secret prisons
worldwide without charge or evidence.
The United State abandoned that policy under President Barack Obama,
but the detention of those being held near Bagram is a reminder that
the issue has not been concluded.
"We've got to resolve their fate by either returning them to their
home country or turning them over to the Afghans for prosecution or
any other number of ways that the Department of Defense has to
resolve," Reinert told Reuters.
Almost nothing is known of the detainees' identities. The United
States has declined to disclose their nationalities, where they were
captured and how many are still in its custody.
Their status is increasingly urgent because the United States will
lose the right to hold prisoners in Afghanistan after the 2014 end
of mission for the U.S.-led force there.
Most of the prisoners are Pakistani, according to the human rights
group Justice Project Pakistan. Some are from Yemen, Russia and
Saudi Arabia.
The inmates remained in U.S. custody after the prison on the
outskirts of the U.S. military's Bagram base handed its Afghan
detainees over to Afghan control last year.
DILEMMA
The United States wants to repatriate the detainees to their home
countries, Reinert said, but that might not be possible because
Washington has not received assurances they will not prosecuted at
home or kept in humane conditions.
"Until the country provides assurances, the individual cannot be
transferred," he said. He declined to say how many were held at the
prison.
There were about 50 foreign nationals there last year when it was
transferred to Afghan control, U.S. officials said at the time, but
some have since been repatriated.
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One possible solution could be to transfer them to the United
States, where they could be prosecuted. "If someone has committed
a crime overseas that could be a crime also in the United States, a
detainee could be transferred back to the United States," Reinert
said.
They could also end up in Guantanamo Bay, although this was less
likely because of pressure to close the facility, he said.
Obama's 2008 vow to close the prison in Cuba has gone unfulfilled,
and there are 155 detainees still held there because they are either
considered too dangerous to release or the United States cannot find
another country to take them.
The possibility of the Bagram detainees' remaining in U.S. custody
has alarmed rights groups.
"It would be an absolute nightmare if that happened ... We don't
even know who they are ... Our effort is to ensure all Pakistanis
are back before the end of December," said Maryam Haq, a lawyer with
the Justice Project Pakistan.
The United States last week quietly repatriated 14 Pakistani
detainees from the facility because there was no real evidence to
keep them in prison. Other Pakistanis repatriated in the past had
been held for a decade without charge, Haq said.
The United States had long resisted handing over the prison over
concerns "dangerous" prisoners would be set free by the Afghan
authorities and had earlier strongly objected to Afghanistan's
release of about 65 prisoners.
(Editing by Maria Golovnina and Robert Birsel)
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