Gitmo panels struggle to assess facts

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - After years of indefinite confinement, many detainees at Guantanamo Bay say they feel they may never receive justice, according to transcripts of hearings obtained by The Associated Press. Fewer than one in five of detainees allowed a hearing last year even bothered to show up for it.

The frustrated words of men, some of whom admit to fighting with the Taliban but swear they would go peacefully home if released, illustrate the seething tension at a prison where hundreds are held without charges. The transcripts also underscore that the U.S. allegations against the men are often as difficult to substantiate as they are for the detainees to refute.

Sometimes the allegations alarmed even the panels of military officers charged with determining whether a detainee should be freed.

Rahmatullah Sangaryar stood accused of "planning biological and poison attacks on United States and coalition forces in Kandahar, Afghanistan" and of possessing anthrax powder and a liquid poison.

The Afghan detainee said he was captured only with muddy clothes, possessed no anthrax and never planned such an attack. The officer in charge of the panel seemed to grope for a response.

"Do you know of anyone who would accuse you of such an act? This is so serious," the unidentified officer exclaimed. "I am trying to understand why it is here in front of me, this allegation against you."

The military has released a greater number of detainees from Guantanamo Bay than the roughly 340 men who are there today. As of Sept. 6, the U.S. had transferred or released about 435 prisoners from Guantanamo to more than two dozen nations since the detention center opened in January 2002. Most were subsequently released by their home countries.

But last year, the Administrative Review Board panels determined that 83 percent of the detainees whose cases they deliberated were too dangerous to be sent away, and authorized only 17 percent for transfer to other countries.

After AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request, the Pentagon on Friday handed over transcripts of 64 hearings in which the detainees appeared in 2006. In a letter to the AP, the government said it was withholding three transcripts because they would undermine "particularly strong privacy interests."

The transcripts provide a rare opportunity to hear from the detainees themselves, and show increasing despair and frustration.

"It appears that our lives don't mean anything to the Americans ... I have a feeling that I might be here until my death," Mohammed Nasir Khusruf, a 60-year-old detainee from Yemen, told the ARB â?? the second to hear his case.
Gitmo panels struggle to assess facts - Yahoo! News

I thought I was on the verge of shedding a tear but it was just some smoke that got in my eye.......my heart bleeds buttermilk for these people!

Where was the poor ol' 60 year old caught? Afghanistan maybe? So what the hell, OF COURSE Americans could give a rats ass regarding his term!

Have a good one!:s4:

Shed a tear, well, I'm impressed. I didn't know you cared. ,Maybe there are some bad guys in Guantanamo, but for every really bad guy there are probably a hundred that were rounded up by the war lords and turned over for rewards, regardless of guilt. I really don't know one way or the other, but we should give them a trial with the right to face their accusers and to review evidence against them (Discovery) just as every criminal in our country is allowed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by medicinal

I really don't know one way or the other, but we should give them a trial with the right to face their accusers and to review evidence against them (Discovery) just as every criminal in our country is allowed.

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I'm sure they'd show one of ours a "fair trial". They aren't in our country and surely aren't priv to the rights of an American citizen. Let em' rot!:bnd2:

Have a good one!:s4:

Nope, they're more into beheadings and that seems more humane to me. It's over in a few seconds. I used to think the Guillutine was barbaric, but when you think about it, as soon as that blade cuts the spine, you feel nothing, so it is even more humane than what we use in our prison system, can you imagine what the electric chair must feel like, or that first gasp of cyanide, I'd rather be shot in the head than do life in prison, or guillutined. And that is basically what those dudes are facing.