CYPRUS MAIL Tues
16
Reportage
LOST BOYS OF BAG By Katharine Houreld DURING some sleepless nights when his stark bedroom walls remind him too much of his old prison cell in Afghanistan, Jan Sher Khan scans Internet dating sites he’d heard about from US soldiers who once guarded him. The 24-year-old Pakistani never contacts anyone on the dating sites. He doesn’t know how he’d tell them he spent more than six years in the US military prison of Bagram after being detained as a 16year-old and accused of being a suicide bomber. Like Khan many of those who have since been freed are struggling to rebuild their shattered lives. “Sometimes I feel like I’m still in prison,” said Khan, who, like all foreign prisoners at Bagram, was never charged with a crime. “They put me in jail for six years. No proof, nothing. I spent my youth behind bars,” he said, adding that he and other young detainees were beaten repeatedly during the first few months of their detention. A US court found two adult detainees had been beaten to death at Bagram in 2002, using techniques similar to those described by Khan. The US government said such cases of abuse are rare. “Although there have been substantiated cases of abuse in the past, for which US service members have been held accountable, our enemies also have employed a deliberate campaign of exaggerations and fabrications,” said
Foreign prisoners at Bagram have no trials, only review boards staffed by US military officers.
US officials in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Washington, contacted by Reuters, all declined to discuss individual cases of Bagram detainees Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a spokesman for the Department of Defence in Washington. “All credible allegations of abuse are thoroughly investigated, and appropriate disciplinary action is taken when those allegations are substantiated,” said Breasseale. US officials in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Washington, contacted by Reuters, all declined to discuss individual
cases of Bagram detainees. Reuters could not independently verify some aspects of the accounts provided by the detainees interviewed for this story. Journalists are not permitted inside Bagram. Khan said the abuse he suffered inside Bagram has left him with frequent headaches and mood swings. He said he can no longer concentrate for more than a few minutes. Khan is seeing a Pakistani
army psychologist but his problems and the stigma of being labelled a “terrorist” because of his time in Bagram make it difficult to rebuild his life -- to find a job and eventually a wife. “All my friends are married. Some have kids. We are not really close any more,” said Khan, who wants to marry but fears no woman will have him. Foreign prisoners at Bagram have no trials, only review boards staffed by US military officers. Prisoners do not have the right to see classified evidence against them and are represented by a US military officer, not a civilian lawyer. The boards evaluate evidence against them and whether they might pose a future threat to US forces. The process falls “severely short of fair trial standards,” said Sarah Belal from Justice Project Pakistan, which has filed a case in Pakistan on behalf of some of the families. The US government says detention is necessary to stop released prisoners from returning to the battlefield. Some have done so, it says. “Detention in wartime has long been recognised as legitimate under international law. Just as we do with prisoners of war in more traditional armed conflicts, we acknowledge that the threat they pose may change over time,” said Breasseale. A case filed in the United States three years ago by the International Justice Network is challenging the US right to hold foreign prisoners captured abroad indefinitely in Bagram.
The US government says detention is necessary to stop released prisoners from returning to the battlefield
More than 2,500 juveni in Afghanistan, Iraq and United States since 2001, Khan said he was told for more than two years that the military review boards were willing to let him go but were waiting for a response from the Pakistani government. The Pakistani government said they always responded
promptly to requests from the United States. Belal is working on a case in Pakistan to force the Pakistani government to do more to bring its citizens home from Bagram. Khan said he ran away from
More than 300 children were recruited as fighters in Afgha