Report reveals ‘gross errors’ in evidence against inmates at Guantanamo
Eight Afghan individuals have been held at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay for years without concrete evidence, a new report by an independent group says.
According to the report, released by the non-profit Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) on Thursday, the detainees at the notorious prison have been held for years on tenuous evidence and the US military has been unable to substantiate accusations against any of them.
The report said that military and court documents outlining the evidence against the eight Afghan detainees were “rife with hearsay, secret evidence, bad translations, gross errors of fact and testimony obtained under duress and torture.”
It also said none of the men had been captured on the battlefield, nor were they “accused of carrying out a particular attack.”
The independent analysis group described the US invasion of Afghanistan and its arbitrary detention of Afghans as “gross miscarriages of justice,” and a major factor in driving some Afghans toward militancy.
“Viewing the US detention regime through the lens of the Afghan experience in Guantanamo raises broader questions about the effectiveness of US intelligence and justice,” it said.
The report said six of the detainees had been jailed at Guantanamo Bay since 2002 and the other two since 2007, adding that they are all either still in Guantanamo Bay or recently moved to the United Arab Emirates.
US President Barack Obama had pledged during his 2008 presidential campaign to close the military prison, which is located on Cuba’s southeastern coast, before he leaves office in January. However, he has been unable to fulfill his promise in the face of stiff opposition from the US Congress.
The Obama administration has transferred most of the detainees to other countries, but there is a small number of detainees who the administration says it would like to keep at a US facility for national security reasons.
A Senate report in December 2014 revealed that the CIA had used a wide array of sexual abuse and other forms of torture as part of its interrogation methods against the prisoners at Guantanamo.
Afghanistan is still suffering from insecurity and violence years after the United States and its allies invaded it in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The military invasion removed the Taliban from power, but their militancy continues to this day.
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