After four years of secrecy, the Pentagon released documents Friday that contain the names of hundreds of detainees held at a U.S. military prison. The release resulted from a victory by The Associated Press in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
The Bush administration had hidden the identities, home countries and other information about the men, who were accused of taking up arms against the United States. But a federal judge rejected administration arguments that releasing the identities would violate the detainees' privacy and could endanger them and their families.
The names were scattered throughout more than 5,000 pages of transcripts of hearings in which detainees defended themselves against allegations that they were "enemy combatants." That classification, Bush administration lawyers say, deprives the detainees of Geneva Convention prisoner-of-war protections and allows them to be held indefinitely without charges.
None of the big fish like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, show up on the list, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. Mohammed and other participants in the 9/11 plot are held by the CIA in secret prisons.
Most of the men were captured during the 2001 U.S.-led war that drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and sent Osama bin Laden deeper into hiding.
Documents released last year — also because of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the AP — had the detainees' names and nationalities blacked out.
"Some folks don't want the names to be released for security and privacy reasons. Other folks think it should be open to the world to see," Army Maj. Jeffrey Weir, a Guantanamo spokesman, said Friday outside the kitchen where prisoners' food is prepared.
The documents, transcripts from at least 317 hearings at Guantanamo Bay, should shed light on the scope of an insurgency still battling U.S. troops in Afghanistan, in part by detailing how Muslims from many countries wound up fighting alongside the Taliban there.
U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff of New York ruled in favor of the AP last week.
"This is extremely important information," said Curt Goering, senior deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA. "We've been asking ever since the camp opened for a list of everyone there as one of the most basic first steps for any detaining authority."
Human rights monitors say keeping identities of prisoners secret can lead to abuses and deprive their families of information about their fate.
The United States, which opened the prison on its Navy base in eastern Cuba in January 2002, now holds about 490 prisoners at Guantanamo. Only 10 have been charged with crimes.
Neal Sonnett, chairman of the American Bar Association's task force on enemy combatants, said he hopes the documents will help focus attention on the conditions for the detainees and the way the hearings were handled.
"Perhaps even more important than just the identities of the detainees are the unedited transcripts of the hearings, which I think will reveal a lot about the way in which the detainees have been treated and the way in which their status has been determined," Sonnett said. He was at Guantanamo to observe pretrial hearings for two detainees charged with crimes.
Here are some details from transcripts of "enemy combatant" hearings involving Guantanamo detainees:
Feroz Ali Abassi, the British detainee who submitted written complaints that military police had sex in front of him while he was trying to pray, tried repeatedly in his "enemy combatant" hearing to explain why he should be considered a prisoner of war and thus entitled to better treatment. But an Air Force colonel whose identity remains blacked out, would have none of it. "Mr. Abassi your conduct is unacceptable and this is your absolute final warning. I do not care about International Law. I do not want to hear the words International Law again. We are not concerned about International Law," the colonel insisted before having Abassi removed from the hearing so that the military could consider classified evidence against him.Saifullah A. Paracha, a multimillionaire businessman from Karachi, Pakistan, was arrested on arrival in Bangkok, Thailand, in July 2003, held in isolation for 14 months in Afghanistan and then sent to Guantanamo. A computer science graduate of the New York Institute of Technology, he ackowledged meeting Osama Bin Ladin twice during visits of prominent Pakistani groups to Afghanistan, but denied all high-level offenses he's been accused of, which include making investments for Al Qaeda members, translating statements from Bin Ladin into Urdu, joining in a plot to smuggle explosives into the U.S. and recommending that nuclear weapons be used against U.S. soldiers. Told that he'd eventually be given a chance to pursue his case in U.S. courts, he asks: "I've been here 17 months, would that be before I expire?" "I would certainly hope so, especially since you are under the care of the U.S. government," he's told.Abdul Gappher, an ethnic Uighur from western China, was accused of traveling to Afghanistan to join the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Gappher denied that, saying he was in Afghanistan to "get some training to fight back against the Chinese government," and had nothing against the United States. He testified that his own "people and my own family are being tortured under the Chinese government." He was captured by in Pakistan, where he said the police "sold us to the U.S. government."Mohammed Sharif, a native of Sherberghan, Afghanistan, was accused of serving as a guard at a Taliban camp. He denied being a guard, and said he had been captured by the Taliban and put to work. He said he feared punishment and retribution against his family if he fled. Sharif denied any knowledge of al Qaeda and asked the tribunal repeatedly to produce the (classified) evidence against him, so that he might respond. "What could you have possibly done, that we might discover some of those facts?" Sharif is asked. "That's my point," he responds. "There are no facts. ... this is ridiculous. I know for a fact there is no proof."Abdullah Mohammed Al-Hamiri, of Yemen, was accused of association with al Qaeda; of participating in military training camp in Kandahar, Afghanistan, from July through September 2001; and of speaking with Osama bin Laden at a safe house. He was captured by Pakistani forces with a group of Arab fighters while attempting to flee Afghanistan in December 2001. "All of those charges he said were made up in order to keep him and other Muslims at this camp," his legal representative said.Naibullah Darwaish, of Afghanistan, was accused of being the Taliban-appointed police chief for the Shinkai district in Afghanistan's Zabol Province. Married with seven children but without any formal education, Darwaish said he fought for years with the Mujahdeeen against the Russians, as did the governor who appointed him chief, but denies that he or the governor was associated with Taliban, al Qaeda or Islamic terror groups.Mesh Arsad Al Rashid said he went to Afghanistan to help Muslims fight against former northern warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, now the Afghan army chief of staff, and Ahmed Shah Massood, an anti-Taliban Afghan military commander slain Sept. 9, 2001. "I did not know my training would be considered al Qaeda training. I was trying to help Muslims," said Rashid, who gave no country of origin. "I am not from the Taliban, I'm just a person, a helper. I was going to fight against Dostum."