Homeland Stupidity

Charges dropped, but six remain in Guantanamo Bay

By: Michael Hampton
Posted: August 24, 2006 4:04 am @ Homeland Stupidity

Six men suspected of plotting to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia, were brought to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2002. They remain imprisoned there even though the charges against them were dropped.

The detainees and their lawyers claim that they are still being held because releasing them would mean the U.S. having to admit an embarrassing error, while the Pentagon says it has classified information indicating the men are dangerous.

In 2004, Bosnian prosecutors and police formally exonerated the six men after a lengthy criminal investigation. Last year, the Bosnian prime minister asked the Bush administration to release them, calling the case a miscarriage of justice. . . .

Senior Bosnian officials said they have been told by U.S. diplomats that the six Algerians will never be allowed to return to Bosnia, which had granted dual citizenship to most of the men before their seizure. Instead, U.S. officials have pressed Algeria to take back the prisoners on the condition that they be confined or kept under surveillance there. So far, the Algerian government has balked. . . .

“The Americans did not want to return me to Bosnia. Why? Because the Americans claimed to have evidence against me. I can’t be returned and found innocent,” Mustafa Ait Idr, one of the six Algerians, told a military tribunal at Guantanamo in October 2004, according to a transcript of the hearing.

“So now I am sitting here in Cuba and I do not know why. I do not know what is happening outside; I do not know. But what I do know is that this is a game.” — Washington Post

The Post has much more, including documents from Bosnia’s official investigations and transcripts of military tribunals held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Pentagon, for its part, says it has information which links the men to al-Qaeda, but the evidence which is known is flimsy at best, and they of course will not present the evidence to the detainees, even in the tribunals, saying it’s classified.

Sounds like a fair trial to me.