LONDON — Up to 90 Afghans are being held at a British military facility in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Philip Hammond confirmed Wednesday, while rejecting comparisons between their detention and that of detainees at the American prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Mr. Hammond said that the number of suspected insurgents held by British forces at their base in Camp Bastion was higher than normal because of problems in handing them over to the Afghan legal system.
The British government argues that it is working hard to hand over the detainees. Delays in doing so were caused by worries about whether the Afghan authorities were ready to deal with them appropriately.
But British lawyers acting for some of the men want them charged or released, arguing that they have been held for up to 14 months without the start of formal legal proceedings in what could amount to unlawful detention.
The dispute highlights the dilemma facing British and other NATO forces in Afghanistan over what to do with detainees suspected of having links to insurgent groups and concerns about their treatment if they are handed over to the Afghan authorities.
Mr. Hammond criticized the legal challenge by lawyers in Britain, arguing that some of the detainees had sought to attack British forces.
"They are asking the court to order us to release these people, to turn them back onto the battlefield, so they can carry on with the activities for which they were detained in the first place," Mr. Hammond told the BBC, which first reported the detentions.
That would put British soldiers and other troops from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force at risk, Mr. Hammond added.
Camp Bastion is the last British military base in Afghanistan, and Phil Shiner, a lawyer for some of the detainees, told the BBC that it has a "secret facility" that has been "completely off the radar."
Mr. Hammond rejected that charge, saying that the British Parliament was aware of the issue and that lawyers had earlier sought to prevent detainees from being turned over to the Afghan authorities.
29 May, 2013
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Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFoo5wsS1WqnIuxQ1ATZWqvnYsLdg&url=http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/world/asia/britain-detains-suspected-insurgents-at-afghan-base.html
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