04/21/06

Pentagon confirmation of Guantanamo detainees prompts complaints from other countries

By PAUL GARWOOD
Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A chorus of complaints against U.S. President George W. Bush's administration has erupted following the release of a previously secret list of the names and citizenship of 558 people held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.

In Saudi Arabia on Friday, a lawyer representing families of detainees was quoted as saying he expects the United States to release 120 Saudis held at the detention camp in eastern Cuba -- and that he and other Saudi lawyers will then sue the Washington to gain compensation for the years their clients spent at prison on the island of Cuba.

"I expect a breakthrough by a political decision in the crises of the Saudi detainees," Katib al-Shamri told the state-guided newspaper Okaz.

In other reactions, Britain said a British resident should be freed after being held for years without charges. Afghanistan's peace and reconciliation commission vowed to send a delegation to the prison to make sure Afghans aren't being mistreated. China demanded custody of a group of Uighur separatists, to be prosecuted on terrorism charges.

The list of Guantanamo detainees, released Wednesday under orders of a federal judge in a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by The Associated Press, may provide the first proof of life to families whose relatives have disappeared, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday. There are now about 490 detainees from about 40 countries at the base.

The Red Cross, which is the only outside agency the United States has allowed to visit the detainees and check on their conditions, previously had access to the list, but wasn't allowed to make it public. Chief spokeswoman Antonella Notari couldn't cite specific cases, but said it's possible that families will now discover that their relatives have been among those held.

The information stirred anger in many countries. In Pakistan, a senior official said it shows Washington concealed information about its citizens. Egyptian and Jordanian security officials said none of their citizen detainees had criminal records or known terrorist connections. And activists in Mauritania and Bahrain demanded freedom for their citizens, who are approaching their fifth year of detention without trial.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan, who was held from 2002 to late 2005 in Guantanamo Bay, said the world deserved a better idea of who remained behind bars and whether they are guilty of any crimes.

"I think it is good that everybody knows about the situation in Guantanamo Bay, but still nobody knows what the future is for these people who are still in jail," the white-turbaned Abdul Salam Zaeef said in his heavily protected Kabul home.

"I don't want these people to be released without having a fair trial, because only then will the world see that America doesn't have any evidence to justify holding them for four years."

Bahrain's Human Rights Society said it has presented petitions to the U.S. Embassy calling for release of three remaining Bahraini detainees and seeking guarantees their treatment doesn't violate international law.

One of them, Juma Mohammed Al Dossary, 32, has made 10 suicide attempts, gone on a hunger strike and has been force-fed to stay alive, U.S. officials have said.

Three other Bahrainis on the list, including a member of the royal family, were released in November.

The Pentagon list is not a complete roster of Guantanamo detainees _ it identifies only the detainees who had "enemy combatant" hearings. More than 750 people have passed through Guantanamo since it opened in January 2002, and the Pentagon hasn't revealed what it has done with the vast majority of them.

That secrecy apparently extended even to U.S. allies in the war on terror. A Pakistani Interior Ministry official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, reacted angrily to the list, saying there were more Pakistani nationals in the prison than the U.S. had told Pakistan until this month.

The official, who is familiar with his country's efforts to win freedom for Guantanamo detainees, said Pakistan had thought just seven of its citizens were being held there.

"According to the latest information provided to us by America, 22 Pakistanis are still detained there," he told the AP. "It is a fact that they have been concealing information from us about our people detained at Guantanamo Bay."

Beijing claims the 22 Chinese nationals on the list include violent Muslim separatists fighting for an independent state called "East Turkestan." U.S. officials have sent a number of Guantanamo detainees to their home countries to be prosecuted -- including six Frenchmen now awaiting trial on terrorism charges -- but has said the Uighurs can't be returned to China because they likely will be tortured or killed.

Even Britain, America's strongest ally in the war on terrorism, announced Thursday that it has requested the release of a longtime British resident on the list, saying Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote recently to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking that Bisher al-Rawi be returned to Britain.
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Associated Press Writers Ben Fox in Puerto Rico, Alexander G. Higgins in Switzerland, Munir Ahmad in Pakistan, Ahmed Mohammed in Mauritania, Reem Khalifa in Bahrain and Amir Shah in Afghanistan contributed to this story.