Freedom Delayed For 82 Inmates Cleared At Guantanamo

Taken from Houston Chronicle, April 28, 2007
By CRAIG WHITLOCK (Washington Post)

More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been cleared for release but might have to wait months or years for their freedom because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, Bush administration officials and defense lawyers said.

Since February, the Pentagon has notified about 85 inmates or their attorneys that they are eligible to leave after being cleared by military review panels. But only a handful have gone home.

Eighty-two remain at Guantanamo and face indefinite waits as U.S. officials struggle to figure out when and where to deport them, and under what conditions.

Rejected by homeland
In many cases, the prisoners' countries don't want them back. Yemen has balked at accepting some of the 106 Yemeni nationals at Guantanamo by challenging the legality of their citizenship.

Another major obstacle: U.S. laws that prevent the deportation of people to countries where they could face torture or other human rights abuses, as in the case of 17 Chinese Muslim separatists who have been cleared for release but fear they could be executed for political reasons if returned to China.

Compounding the problem are persistent refusals by the United States, its European allies and other countries to grant asylum to prisoners who are stateless or have no place to go.

"Countries believe this is not their problem. They think they didn't contribute to Guantanamo, and therefore they don't have to be part of the solution," said John Bellinger, legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Algerian forced to wait
A case in point is Ahmed Belbacha, 37, an Algerian from Britain who has been locked up at Guantanamo for five years. The Pentagon has alleged that Belbacha met al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden twice and received weapons training in Afghanistan.

His attorneys say he was rounded up with other innocents in Pakistan in 2002.

On Feb. 22, without explanation, the Pentagon told Belbacha's lawyers in London that he had been approved to leave Guantanamo.

Despite entreaties from the State Department, however, the British government has refused to accept Belbacha and five other immigrants who had lived in the country, because they lack British citizenship.

This month, Clint Williamson, the State Department's ambassador for war crimes, visited Algiers to discuss possible arrangements for the return of two dozen Algerians who remain at Guantanamo, including Belbacha, but no breakthroughs were reported.

In many cases, said Zachary Katznelson, a lawyer who represents Belbacha and several other prisoners who have been cleared, the prisoners and officials in their home countries are willing to approve the transfer, but the delays persist.

"The holdup is a mystery to me, frankly," said Katznelson, senior counsel for Reprieve, a British legal defense fund. "If the U.S. has cleared these people and they want to go back, I don't understand why they can't just put them on a plane."

'Worst of the worst'
Other prisoner advocates said the Bush administration has made its task more difficult by exaggerating the threat posed by most Guantanamo inmates - officials repeatedly called them "the worst of the worst" - and refusing to acknowledge mistaken detentions.

Foreign governments have questioned why U.S. officials should expect other countries to pitch in, given that Washington won't offer asylum to detainees either.

"This is a problem of our own creation, and yet we expect other countries to shoulder the entire burden of a solution," said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

"There needs to be a worldwide solution here. The U.S. has to bear some of that burden. It can't simply expect its partners and allies to absorb all its detainees."

The 82 cleared prisoners who remain stuck in limbo come from 16 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, according to defense attorneys who have received official notification of their clients' status.

The 17 Chinese Muslim separatists make up one of the largest contingents. Other countries with multiple prisoners awaiting release include Afghanistan, Sudan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

Judicial process moves at glacial pace
The Pentagon has reduced the population at Guantanamo by roughly half since the peak of 680 in May 2003, generally by sending prisoners back to their native countries. But U.S. officials said progress has slowed because of the complexity of the remaining cases.

Of the roughly 385 still incarcerated, U.S. officials said they intend to eventually put 60 to 80 on trial and free the rest. But the judicial process has moved at a glacial pace, largely because of constitutional legal challenges.

Only two people have been charged under a military tribunal system approved by Congress last year. One of those cases has been adjudicated. David Hicks, an Australian citizen, pleaded guilty in March to lending material support to terrorists. He was sentenced to nine months in prison and is scheduled to be transferred to Australia in May to serve his time there.

Defense lawyers for some of the 82 cleared prisoners whose release is pending said Hicks received a better deal than did their clients who were not charged with any offenses. "One of the cruel ironies is that in Guantanamo, you've got to plead guilty to be released," said Wizner, the ACLU attorney. "It's the only way out of there."

Virtually all the prisoners at Guantanamo come from countries that the State Department has cited for records of human rights abuses. Under U.S. rules, a pattern of abuses in a country does not automatically preclude deportation there. Rather, U.S. officials must investigate each case to determine whether an individual is likely to face persecution.

The investigations are time-consuming and often meet with resistance from the prisoners' home countries, which can be sensitive to suggestions that they allow torture, U.S. officials said. In cases where there is a risk of mistreatment, U.S. policy is to obtain a written promise from the host government that the prisoner will not be abused and that U.S. officials will be allowed to monitor the arrangement.

"It often takes us months and months, or even years, to negotiate the human rights assurances that we are comfortable with before we will transfer someone to another country," said Bellinger, the State Department's legal adviser.

Human rights groups have criticized the written assurances as unreliable. In March, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch issued a report on the fate of seven Russians who were released from Guantanamo three years ago, asserting three have been tortured since their return.

The watchdog group urged the U.S. government to find third-party countries willing to take Guantanamo inmates who are judged to be at risk for political persecution. U.S. officials countered that they have tried to do that for years, with virtually no success.

Albania steps in
Only one country has been willing to accept Guantanamo prisoners who had never previously set foot inside its borders. Last year, after prodding by the State Department, the Balkan nation of Albania agreed to take five Chinese separatists who belong to an ethnic group known as Uighurs.

The men were captured in late 2001 after they crossed the Chinese border into Afghanistan and Pakistan. Their attorneys said they were mistakenly taken into custody and had not taken up arms against U.S. forces. U.S. officials said dozens of countries refused to grant asylum to the Uighurs for fear of angering China, which considers them terrorists for leading a secession movement in the western province of Turkestan.

Seventeen other Uighurs have been cleared for release but remain in Guantanamo because the State Department has been unable to find a home for them. Human rights groups have pressed the U.S. government to offer the men asylum, to no avail.

A senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Bush administration had considered granting the Uighurs asylum but that the idea was nixed by the Department of Homeland Security. The Uighurs would be rejected under U.S. immigration law, the official said, because they once trained in armed camps and because their separatist front, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, was labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in 2002.

Some human rights advocates said the Bush administration could speed things up by asking the United Nations or another international body for help.