From Andy Worthington Author and Journalist
By Andy Worthington

For the five Afghans who returned home on the same flight as al-Jazeera journalist Sami al-Haj and the other three prisoners described in my previous article, the future is disturbingly uncertain. As I reported last December, when 13 of their compatriots were released from Guantánamo, they, like the other 19 Afghans released in August, September and November, were not freed outright, as was the case with the 152 other Afghans previously released, but were instead transferred to Block D, a wing of Pol-i-Charki, Kabul’s main prison, which was recently refurbished by the US authorities.

While some of these 32 men have subsequently been released from Pol-i-Charki, the whole story of US involvement in the prison is deeply disturbing, as are reports that the “trials” of the men returned from Guantánamo are “closed-door” affairs, in which, as the Washington Post explained last month, “they are often denied access to defense attorneys,” and are, essentially, tried on the basis of “evidence” provided by the United States, which they are not allowed to see; in other words, exactly the same situation that they faced in the Combatant Status Review Tribunals at Guantánamo (the military reviews convened to assess the prisoners’ status as “enemy combatants,” in which military officers took the place of lawyers, and secret evidence was withheld from the prisoners).

As Mohammed Afzal Mullahkeil, a lawyer for the returned Afghan prisoners explained, “When they were sent from Guantánamo, they were told, ‘You are innocent and you will be free once you’re in your country.’ When they got to Bagram, they just brought them to Block D and said they should have a second trial.”

In common with previous Afghan releases, the identities of the five men have been difficult to establish. The Pentagon never discloses the names of those it frees, and although lawyers representing the prisoners are informed of their clients’ departure, the identities of those who did not have legal representation — either because they refused to do so, or had not found any way of establishing contact with the legal community — remain unknown unless the media are present on their arrival (which has not happened in Afghanistan for many years), or until further investigation by lawyers or journalists turn up details of their identities.

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