(Guardian) The Afghan government has released 65 prisoners who the US says are dangerous fighters with American and Afghan blood on their hands but Kabul argues are innocent men illegally locked up for years by foreign soldiers.
The decision to let the men go is the latest blow to a creaking relationship between the Afghan government and its main financial backer.
Plans for a long-term security deal that would keep US forces in the country after their combat mission ends this year have been put on ice since the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, stunned the US administration and much of his own cabinet by backing away from the agreement late last year.
Since then he has ramped up anti-American rhetoric, and is reportedly trying to broker a last-ditch peace deal with the Taliban.
The US is also strengthening its language, and a senior senator who has been a long-term supporter of the American mission in Afghanistan has demanded a halt to aid spending in response to the prisoner release.
“I will be urging my colleagues to cut off all developmental aid to Afghanistan as a response until after the next election,” the South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham told a Senate hearing earlier this week.
Karzai ordered the release of the detainees, part of a group of 88, weeks ago. He said then that a government investigation had found there was evidence to potentially try only 16 of the men. It is unclear why 23 have been retained in custody.
The prisoners were freed just after 9am from the prison near Bagram airfield, about 28 miles north of Kabul, the prison spokesman Major Nimatullah Khaki told the Associated Press. They boarded a bus to leave the facility, laughing and smiling.
Karzai, who had previously described Bagram prison as a “Taliban-producing factory” where innocent men were turned against their country, was happy to see his order implemented.
“Innocent Afghans who were in illegal detention of the US in Bagram prison for years are released today. We welcome it,” his spokesman Aimal Faizi said.
The US military and diplomats condemned the release as a threat to Afghan security forces, an act of disrespect to victims of the war, and a violation of an agreement between the two nations.
“Insurgents in the group released today have killed coalition and Afghan forces. They have killed Afghan men, women and children,” the US military said, warning that the decision could have “potentially lethal effects … on the future security of the Afghan people.”
An earlier statement named some of the men and detailed evidence against them ranging from weapons possession and explosives residue on their clothing to fingerprints on homemade bombs.Men from the group are ”directly linked to attacks killing or wounding 32 US or coalition personnel and 23 Afghan security personnel or civilians”, the military added.The US wants the men tried in Afghan courts, after Kabul rejected a controversial system of indefinite “administrative detention” used by the US military.“We requested a thorough review of each case. Instead, the evidence against them was never seriously considered,” the embassy said in a statement on Thursday, describing the decision to let the men go as “regrettable”.They called on the government to prevent men from the group costing more Afghan and foreign lives.The US military had formally disputed the prisoners’ release under a system agreed when they handed over Bagram prison, but an Afghan review board had in effect overruled its challenge. The detainees’ release has been in the works for weeks.
“Innocent Afghans who were in illegal detention of the US in Bagram prison for years are released today. We welcome it,” his spokesman Aimal Faizi said.
The US military and diplomats condemned the release as a threat to Afghan security forces, an act of disrespect to victims of the war, and a violation of an agreement between the two nations.
“Insurgents in the group released today have killed coalition and Afghan forces. They have killed Afghan men, women and children,” the US military said, warning that the decision could have “potentially lethal effects … on the future security of the Afghan people.”
An earlier statement named some of the men and detailed evidence against them ranging from weapons possession and explosives residue on their clothing to fingerprints on homemade bombs.Men from the group are ”directly linked to attacks killing or wounding 32 US or coalition personnel and 23 Afghan security personnel or civilians”, the military added.The US wants the men tried in Afghan courts, after Kabul rejected a controversial system of indefinite “administrative detention” used by the US military.“We requested a thorough review of each case. Instead, the evidence against them was never seriously considered,” the embassy said in a statement on Thursday, describing the decision to let the men go as “regrettable”.They called on the government to prevent men from the group costing more Afghan and foreign lives.The US military had formally disputed the prisoners’ release under a system agreed when they handed over Bagram prison, but an Afghan review board had in effect overruled its challenge. The detainees’ release has been in the works for weeks.
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