Lawyers, families urge Pakistan to free citizens released from Bagram

Families of the repatriated prisoners were allowed to meet with the detainees at Peshawar prison on Monday.

PESHAWAR: Family members and lawyers representing a group of Pakistani men released from the US controlled Bagram prison in Afghanistan, but held by Pakistani authorities urged the government on Monday to free them or explain why they are still being kept behind bars.

The six men were arrested by US authorities in neighbouring Afghanistan on suspicion of links to the Taliban but they were released on November 16 from the high-security Bagram prison there without charge.

They were repatriated to their homeland and have since been held at a prison in Peshawar.

"We don't know on what charges they are being held," Sarah Belal, one of the lawyers, said outside the sprawling Central Jail in Peshawar.

"We don't know what evidence they are using to hold them. There is no evidence as far as we are concerned," said Belal, who met the men inside the prison earlier in the day.

Prison or justice officials were not immediately available for comment.

Foreign prisoners at Bagram, which is often compared to the Guantanamo Bay jail in Cuba, have no trials, only review boards staffed by US military officers.

Dozens of Pakistani prisoners are believed to be held at Bagram without charge. The boards evaluate evidence against them and whether the detainees might pose a future threat to US forces.

Washington claims such detention is necessary in order to prevent released prisoners from returning to the battlefield. Belal said the relatives had filed an application with a Pakistani court seeking their release.

The family members were allowed to meet their detained relatives at Peshawar prison on Monday for the first time since their return to Pakistan.

"I just want my son back," Wakeel Khan, father of one of the prisoners, 19-year-old Hamidullah, said outside the jail. "The government should hand him over to me so I could take him back to (our home town of) Karachi."