Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Photo: ReutersAfghan President Hamid Karzai rejected criticism yesterday of his government’s release of 65 detainees viewed by Washington as dangerous militants, further fanning tensions with the United States as the international mission in Afghanistan winds down.
Afghan officials described the release as justice for its own citizens who had faced unfounded US accusations. But Nato, which runs the 12-year-old foreign military operation supporting the Karzai government, denounced it as “a major step backward”.
“If Afghan judicial authorities decide to release a prisoner, it is of no concern to the US,” Karzai told a news conference in the Turkish capital Ankara after talks with Turkey’s President and Pakistan’s Prime Minister.
“I hope the US will stop harassing Afghanistan’s procedures and judicial authority. I hope the United States will now begin to respect Afghan sovereignty,” said Karzai, who after over a decade in power is to step down after April elections.
Karzai’s government has long complained that foreign forces have locked up Afghans on dubious grounds, with no proper judicial process.
In an unusually strong statement, the US military force in Kabul said some of the released detainees had killed both Afghans and foreign soldiers and now posed a fresh threat.
“US and Afghan forces risked their lives to ensure the safety of the Afghan people. We call upon the (Kabul government) to consider the potentially lethal effects of today’s releases,” it said, adding that they may resume their “criminal behaviour”.
Video provided by the Afghan Defence Ministry showed the prisoners, with jackets or blankets over their traditional Afghan garb, shaking hands with Afghan military officials as they left the prison.
Abdul Shakor Dadras, head of the Afghan board charged with reviewing the prisoners’ cases, said their detention had been unjustified from the outset, despite the US claims.
“I believe the release of these 65 people will benefit the Afghan nation and it will benefit the American nation and American government,” Dadras said.
In Brussels, Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen echoed the US criticism of the release of the detainees.
“This decision, which appears to have been made based on political calculations and without regard for due process before the Afghan courts, is a major step backwards for the rule of law in Afghanistan, and poses serious security concerns,” he said.
The prisoners were part of a much larger group of detainees transferred to Afghan authority last year as one milestone in the US and Nato transition out of Afghanistan.
More than 500 of those prisoners have already been released, a US military official said on condition of anonymity, while others were recommended for prosecution in Afghan courts.
The 65 freed yesterday were part of a group of 88 whose proposed release had prompted US objections. The fate of the remaining 23 prisoners in the group is still being examined by the Afghan government, the official said.
An unnamed prisoner, speaking in the footage provided by the Afghan Defence Ministry, said those detained at Bagram were “sons of their country, whose ancestors fought against Russia,” referring to what many Afghans see as the Afghan Mujahideen’s honorable fight against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.