Afghan officials agreed on Saturday to take over responsibility for the US military’s Bagram prison north of Kabul, a move that could close a chapter in the troubled history of US detentions since 2001.
The jail at Bagram, where US troops beat to death two prisoners in 2002, stands beside Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq as a symbol of harsh treatment of detainees under the administration of former US president George W. Bush.
Set up to hold prisoners caught in the campaign against the Taliban after the Sept. 11 attacks on the US, it was housed for eight years in an ex-Soviet aircraft hangar, until last month when that was shut and replaced with a purpose-built US$60 million prison Washington says meets international standards.
US forces have long said the goal was eventually to hand the prison over to Afghans. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for an end to detentions by foreign countries on Afghan soil.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement an agreement had been signed that would see the Afghan government take over operation of the prison and responsibility for “investigating, detaining, observing and trying” its inmates.
“The Afghan Defense Ministry will begin in a few days to train a unit which will take responsibility for the prison,” it said.
Colonel Stephen Clutter, spokesman for US military detainee operations in Afghanistan, said Saturday’s agreement was a memorandum signed by Afghan ministries, setting out their responsibilities. The commander of US and NATO forces, General Stanley McChrystal, attended the meeting but did not sign.
The Afghan Ministry of Defense would first take the lead, eventually transfering the prison to the Afghan justice ministry, responsible for ordinary prisons under Afghan law, Clutter said.
“They are working to an aggressive timescale,” he said.
Afghan personnel could be stationed in the prison by March, and could eventually take it over by the end of this year, depending on how quickly they could be trained.
Clutter said there were now about 750 prisoners at Bagram, including about 30 non-Afghans, some of whom may have been brought there after being captured outside the country.
US authorities in the past have used Bagram to hold terrorism suspects they capture in other parts of the world, although Clutter said it would probably be used only for detainees caught in Afghanistan once it is transferred.
Prisoners held in Bagram are not given lawyers or trials, a practice that Washington was required to end in Iraq last year under an agreement with the Iraqi government.
Washington set up a new system last year to allow Bagram detainees hearings to contest their detention and “personal representatives” from the military who are not lawyers. Human rights groups say those safeguards are insufficient.
Clutter said the eventual goal would probably be for prisoners to be given normal legal rights under Afghan law, although precise procedures would ultimately be for the Afghans to determine once they take responsibility.
Washington would ensure that Afghans are trained to guard the prisoners humanely before the prison is turned over, he said.
“President Karzai himself has said detention and prosecution of suspects should be the responsibility of the Afghan government,” Clutter said. “So that’s where this is heading. This will eventually help Afghanistan strengthen its own security.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS