US call to fix Afghan prisons amid abuse
July 21, 2009
Article from: The Australian
A SWEEPING US military review calls for overhauling the American-run prison at Bagram Air Base as well as the entire Afghan jail and judicial systems, amid concern abuses and militant recruiting within the prisons are helping to strengthen the Taliban, reports said yesterday.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, sent a confidential message last week to all of the military service chiefs and senior field commanders throughout Afghanistan asking them to redouble their efforts to alert troops to the importance of treating detainees properly, The New York Times reported.

Harsh interrogation methods and sleep deprivation were used routinely in the early years of the the prison at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul. Two Afghan detainees died in 2002 after being beaten by American soldiers and hung by their arms from the ceiling of isolation cells.

But even as treatment at Bagram improved in recent years, conditions worsened in the larger Afghan-run prison network, which houses more than 15,000 detainees at three dozen overcrowded and often violent sites, the report said. The country's deeply flawed judicial system affords prisoners virtually no legal protections, human rights advocates said.

Major General Douglas Stone of the US marines, credited with revamping American detention practices in Iraq, was assigned to review all detention issues in Afghanistan.

General Stone's report, which has not been made public but is circulating among senior American officials, recommends separating extremist militants from more moderate detainees instead of having them mixed together as they are now.

Under the new approach, the US would help build and finance an Afghan-run prison for the hard-core extremists who are now using the poorly run Afghan corrections system as a camp to train petty thieves and other common criminals to be deadly militants, US officials said.

The remaining inmates would be taught vocational skills and offered other classes, and they would be taught about moderate Islam with the aim of reintegrating them into society, the US officials said. The review also presses for training new Afghan prison guards, prosecutors and judges.

The recommendations come as American officials express fears that the notoriously overcrowded Afghan-run prisons will be overwhelmed by waves of new prisoners captured in the American-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, where thousands of marines are battling Taliban fighters.

The prison at Bagram also became a holding site for terrorism suspects captured outside Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yesterday's report coincided with news that Obama administration officials are saying they would miss a deadline to make recommendations on detainee policy -- a key part of the plan to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by January -- and are expected to seek an extension.

A White House official downplayed the missed deadline and said the January closure of Guantanamo was still on track.

Instead of a final report, the detention policy task force set up by President Barack Obama is expected to present him with an interim report on its work tonight.

The scope of the detention policy review goes beyond Guantanamo, dealing with how the US handles future prisoners suspected of terrorism, and what to do with detainees who may require indefinite imprisonment without trials.

Agencies, The Wall Street Journal