US hands over control of Bagram jail to Afghans

Associated Press in Kabul

American officials have handed over formal control of Afghanistan's only large-scale US-run prison to Kabul, even as disagreements between the two countries over the Taliban and terror suspects held there marred the transfer.

The handover ceremony on Monday took place at the prison next to a sprawling US airfield in Bagram, north of Kabul. President Hamid Karzai has hailed the transfer as a victory for Afghan sovereignty.

Bagram, also known as the Parwan Detention Facility, has been the focus of controversy in the past but never had the notoriety of the prisons at Guantánamo Bay or Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

Earlier this year, the prison's image was tarnished when hundreds of Qur'ans and other religious materials were taken from its library and sent to a burn pit at the military base. The event triggered anti-American protests across Afghanistan and led to the deaths of six US soldiers.

"We are telling the Afghan president and the Afghan people that today is a proud day," said Afghan army general Ghulam Farouk, who now heads the prison.

The US had already given Afghanistan authority over most of the 3,000 detainees held at the prison before 9 March, when the countries signed a handover agreement. The prison's current detainee population under US control is not known but is thought to number in the hundreds.

The US recently suspended the transfer of new detainees apparently because of disagreements with Kabul, which has questioned the long-term detention of suspects without charge after their capture.

The US reportedly fears that Afghan authorities may simply let some detainees go, and appears reluctant to turn over all the suspects it holds.

According to Farouk, the US had transferred 3,082 detainees but was still in the process of transferring another 600 captured after the March agreement. The US will continue to hold about 50 non-Afghan prisoners not covered by the agreement on a small part of the facility that they will still administer. They are thought to include Pakistanis and other foreign nationals either captured in Afghanistan or transferred to Bagram from other countries including Iraq.

President Karzai hails formal transfer of controversial US-run prison to Kabul as victory for Afghan sovereignty.

The disagreement is not expected to affect military operations around Afghanistan, but it is an indication of the tense relations between the US-led Nato military coalition and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai.

It is also unlikely to have an impact on the gradual handover of security responsibilities from Nato to Afghan forces. The US and its allies are drawing down their military forces in Afghanistan and hope to fully hand over control to the Afghans by the end of 2014, when most foreign troops are to leave the country.

The acting Afghan defence minister, Enayatullah Nazary, said after a ceremony that "very few prisoners" remained with the US military and the rest were under Afghan control.

He attributed the delay in handing over the rest to "technical issues" but would not elaborate.

Source: The Guardian UK (10/09/2012): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/10/us-hands-control-bagram-afghans?newsfeed=true