Bagram inmates deserve fair trial

US military had been under fire for denying inmates’ legal rights

The recent release of nine Pakistani detainees from US custody at the Bagram Prison in Afghanistan has once again highlighted the issue of Pakistani prisoners who, according to independent legal aid groups, are held for years without charge, trial or legal rights.

The mental agonies of the nine prisoners have not yet ended as they were handed over to the Pakistani security officials in Rawalpindi for further questioning of their possible links with militant groups. From the controversial Bagram prison, they are now in a continued incommunicado detention in Pakistan.

The US military had been under fire for denying the inmates’ legal rights. They violate international laws on others’ land which they cannot do on their own soil. The US notion that American laws are not applicable at Guantanamo and Bagram as they are not American land is unacceptable to many legal experts, who insist that the infamous prisons are under US control even if the detention centers are on foreign soil.

All the Pakistani prisoners of Bagram are believed to have been arrested either in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Fair trial is the right of every Pakistani – even if he is a terror suspect. When it comes to the US itself, the Obama Administration swapped five senior Afghan Taliban commanders from Guantanamo in May this year just for the lone American soldier.

Legal experts in Pakistan have strong reservations over the way the US deals with the Pakistani prisoners at Bagram. Shahzad Akbar, who voluntarily pleads the cases of civilians affected by the US drones in Pakistan, says every prisoner has a right to due process and fair trial even if he is languishing at Bagram under terror charges. “The fair trial demands lawyer of one’s choice. Similarly denial of trial is violation of fundamental right of any individual,” Akbar said. On Bagram detainees, he said trial before an independent forum that is the fundamental of due process is denied to prisoners at Bagram.

The tragedy of the Pakistani prisoners had been that no one knows when, where and on what charges had they been arrested. When they had been transferred to Bagram? Pakistani prisoners at the Bagram prison have never attracted much attention of the officials.

Pakistani officials say 15 nationals are still languishing at Bagram detention center, which Afghans consider as another Guantanamo in Afghanistan. The Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), which has been representing the families of Bagram prisoners since 2011, says the US authorities had freed 10 Pakistani prisoners from Bagram in May this year. Another group of six had been released in November 2013.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2014.