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US in talks to return terror suspects

Senior Defense Department officials said on Sunday that the military may soon release scores of detainees to their home countries, perhaps more than 100, who are being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

One senior official said negotiations were under way with the nations of dozens of the detainees over the terms of transferring custody from the US military to their home governments and eventual repatriation.

"We've identified a number that we think could be released to their home or host countries," one senior Pentagon official said. "We are negotiating with these countries" over the specific terms under which the prisoners might be transferred to the custody of their home countries.

The negotiations, a second senior official said, have been over issues like whether the detainees will be freed once they return home or just reimprisoned locally.

The first official declined to give the exact number of prisoners being considered for repatriation and cautioned that no decisions had been made.

The possibility of an impending large-scale release from Guantanamo -- which currently houses about 660 prisoners, most of whom were captured during and after the war in Afghanistan -- was first reported by Time Magazine. Time quoted US officials as saying that some of the detainees being considered for release had been captured by Afghan warlords and sold for the bounty offered by Washington for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.

The detention of people captured in Afghanistan has been a major irritant in relations between the US and several of its allies.

The captives are imprisoned at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, on the southeastern tip of Cuba, and have remained in legal and political limbo for nearly two years.

The issue of these captives was a major item on the agenda when President George W. Bush conferred in London recently with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. Nine Britons are detained at Guantanamo, and the British government, which has faced public pressure over the situation, has sought a series of concessions.

The US has declined to give the detainees access to lawyers, and it has not charged any of them with crimes.

Officials have said the detainees were not entitled to prisoner-of-war status, which would confer some rights, because the prisoners were "illegal combatants." The officials have said that when the men were captured they were not adhering to some requirements of the Geneva Conventions, like wearing clearly marked uniforms.

These arguments by the US have not proved convincing with its allies.

In a speech on Nov. 25, one of Britain's most senior judges, Johan Steyn, offered a scathing criticism of the US' continued detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, the latest of several protests from top international lawyers.

"The question is whether the quality of justice envisaged for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay complies with the minimum international standards for the conduct of fair trials," Steyn said. "The answer can be given quite shortly. It is a resounding `No.'"

The speech was notable because it is extraordinary for sitting judges to comment on current situations.

He also said that "authoritarian regimes with dubious human rights records" have seized upon Washington's example to justify their own behavior.

While a large release of detainees from Guantanamo could lessen some of the international criticism, it might also provide support for those who have said the US held the prisoners for a long time with no evidence of any wrongdoing.

Defense Secretary Donald Rums-feld has said that military officials have been trying to determine which prisoners should face char-ges before military commissions.
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