Afghan prison transfer delayed

Among the Afghan proposals to reform the legal system is the development of a national security court that would adopt the U.S. practice of detaining suspected insurgents indefinitely without trial.

U.S. and Afghan officials say the legal basis for continuing the detentions derives from a provision of the Geneva Conventions that allows combatants to be held without trial, as long as standards of review and humane treatment are met. The advocacy group Human Rights First argued in a report published this year that Parwan’s U.S.-military-run detainee review board “fails to provide detainees with an adequate opportunity to defend themselves against charges that they are collaborating with insurgents and present a threat to U.S. forces.” U.S. officials reject that assertion.

Earlier this month, during a typical review board hearing — which includes no lawyers or judges — three U.S. military officers sat in front of a slim, bearded detainee who pleaded with cuffed hands for mercy.

“I am not Taliban,” he said in his native Pashto. “I am a farmer. This is all a mistake.”

But the officers were looking at classified intelligence that said otherwise, labeling the man a “Taliban facilitator” from Kandahar. Now the board had to decide: Could an Afghan court be trusted to handle his case, or would he be detained without a trial?

Because the evidence is largely classified, the three officers said they could not risk handing him over to local judges.

The suspect was escorted to a wheelchair used to transport detainees and pushed back to his cell. He will be questioned by another review board in six months, and the decision will be reassessed.