Bush's Crimes Epitomized In Treatment of Gitmo Detainee
"Decisions by more than a dozen countries in the Middle East, Europe and South Asia to release the former Guantanamo detainees raise questions about whether they were really as dangerous as the United States claimed, or whether some of America's staunchest allies have set terrorists and militants free.
"The United States does not systematically track what happens to detainees once they leave Guantanamo, the U.S. State Department says. Defense lawyers and human rights groups say they know of no centralized database, although one group is attempting to compile one.
"When the Pentagon announces a detainee has been moved from Guantanamo, it gives his nationality but not his name, making it difficult to track the roughly 360 men released since the detention center opened in January 2002. The Pentagon says detainees have been sent to 26 countries.
"Once the detainees arrived in other countries, 205 of the 245 were either freed without being charged or were cleared of charges related to their detention at Guantanamo. Forty either stand charged with crimes or continue to be detained.
"Only a tiny fraction of transferred detainees have been put on trial. The AP identified 14 trials, in which eight men were acquitted and six are awaiting verdicts. Two of the cases involving acquittals ”one in Kuwait, one in Spain ”initially resulted in convictions that were overturned on appeal."
Now, according to the LA Times, a federal judge, for the first time, has ordered the release of 17 Chinese Muslims from Guantanamo.
"U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina said that the government's authority to hold the men had "ceased" and that they were entitled to be released.
"The 17 are Uighurs who fled persecution in the far western reaches of China. U.S. authorities, fearing what Chinese officials would do, have refused to send them back to China, and no other country has been willing to take them.
"The judge's order came more than six years after the men were sent to Guantanamo and more than four years after the Pentagon cleared most of them to be released. The Supreme Court ruled four months ago that judges can order the release of prisoners wrongly held at Guantanamo.
"But Bush administration lawyers have insisted that judges have no authority to interfere with the handling of foreign military prisoners. On Tuesday, they also argued that immigration laws prohibit the release into the United States of individuals alleged to have terrorist ties and asked for an emergency order to block the release.
"Administration officials "are deeply concerned by and strongly disagreed with" the decision to release the men, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in a statement.
"Human rights lawyers have described the 17 Uighurs as among the most egregious examples of wrongful imprisonment at Guantanamo. Natives of an area they call East Turkistan, the Uighurs fled from oppression by the Chinese government, including its policy of forced abortions, and settled in Afghanistan in 2001.
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