US Detains Innocents in Gitmo: WikiLeaks

A new cache of 700 classified military documents released by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks shows that the United States is holding scores of innocent people in the Guantanamo detention camp.

One man was transferred to the facility “because of his general knowledge of activities in the areas of Khowst and Kabul based as a result of his frequent travels through the region as a taxi driver,” said a leaked file cited by the Guardian.
Published in US and European newspapers, the files revealed analysis for all 780 detainees who have ever been held at the infamous island facility.
The documents show that many innocents or marginal figures of Afghans and Pakistanis were held in the Guantanamo dragnet because the US forces thought they might be of some intelligence value.
Among those detained were 150 innocents while other 380 people were classified as low-ranking foot soldiers.
A prisoner was shipped to the base “because he was a mullah, who led prayers at Manu mosque in Kandahar province, Afghanistan … which placed him in a position to have special knowledge of the Taliban,” another file said.
Another detainee was an Al-Jazeera journalist who was held at Guantanamo for six years for interrogations about the Arabic news network.
His dossier states that one of the reasons was “to provide information on … the al-Jazeera news network’s training program, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan”.
Among the detainees who were proved innocent were an 89-year-old Afghan villager, suffering from senile dementia, and a 14-year-old boy who had been an innocent kidnap victim.
The file of Guantanamo’s oldest prisoner, Mohammed Sadiq, revealed that the old man was transported to Cuba to interrogate him about “suspicious phone numbers” found in his compound.
Other children were also shipped to Cuba cages including Naqib Ullah, who was about 14 when captured in 2003 and spent a year interned at Guantanamo.
The 14-year-old was shipped out merely because of “his possible knowledge of Taliban…local leaders”

Interrogation Guide

The leaked files included instructions for interrogation techniques given to Guantanamo Bay staff on how to decide whether to hold or release detainees.
“Travel to Afghanistan for any reason after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 is likely a total fabrication with the true intentions being to support Usama Bin Laden through direct hostilities against the US forces,” one document warned.
A highly classified 17-page document titled “GTMO matrix of threat indicators for enemy combatants”, advises interrogators to look out for signs of terrorist activity.
Another briefing told interrogators on methods to expose al-Qaeda cover stories.
“Travel to Afghanistan for charity reasons or to teach or study Islam,” the document warns, “is a known al-Qaeda/extremist cover story without credence.
“Many of the detainees have developed their cover stories around mainstream Islam and the charity and goodwill of those Muslims to lend a benign appearance to their travel to Afghanistan.”
Other methods ranged from links to a number of mosques around the world, including two in London, to ownership of a particular model of Casio watch.
Known to be cheap and widely available around the world, the Casio F-91W digital watch was declared to be “the sign of al-Qaeda” by the analysts stationed at Guantanamo Bay.
“The Casio was known to be given to the students at al-Qaida bombmaking training courses in Afghanistan,” it states.
The US authorities also listed the main Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), as a terrorist organization alongside groups such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hizbullah and Iranian intelligence, the Guardian said.
Such a report is expected to pour fuel on the flames of Washington’s already strained relationship with its key regional ally.
The Guantanamo Bay was opened in early 2002 as part of the George W. Bush administration’s so-called war on terror, waged shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.
The camp is notorious for rights abuses and torture, with many prisoners over the years have committed suicide and gone on extensive hunger strikes.
The detention facility has been widely condemned around the world as a stain on America’s human rights record.
Amnesty International once described Guantanamo as a “symbol of abuse and represents a system of detention that is betraying the best US values and undermines international standards.”
The international rights watchdog once likened it to gulag prisons, the Soviet detention centers notorious for torturing political prisoners and suspects.

Source: OnIslam