Guantanamo detainees arrive in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan – Sixteen Afghans and one Iranian released from years in captivity at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, arrived in Afghanistan on Thursday, an Afghan official said.

The 16 Afghans appeared at a news conference alongside Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, head of Afghanistan’s reconciliation commission, which assists with the release of detainees from Guantanamo and the U.S. prison at the Bagram military base north of Kabul.

Mujaddedi said many of the detainees, who are now free, had served up to four years in Guantanamo. He said “most” of the prisoners were innocent and had been turned in to the U.S. military by other Afghans because of personal disputes.

The released Iranian prisoner, who also arrived in Afghanistan on Thursday, was handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross, he said.

A U.S. military spokesman in Kabul confirmed that 16 Afghans had been released from Guantanamo and turned over to the Afghan government. Lt. Marcelo Calero said he had no information about the Iranian prisoner.

One of the released prisoners, Sayed Mohammead Ali Shah, said he had been a delegate at the country’s first loya jirga, a council of leaders that helped establish the interim government in 2002 after the U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban in 2001.

“For four years they put me in jail in Cuba for nothing,” said Shah, a doctor from the eastern province of Paktia whose hands shook from nervousness when he spoke.

“All these people (the other prisoners) and all those Afghans still in Cuba, they are innocent,” he told reporters. “All were arrested because of false reports, and the Americans, without investigating, they arrested innocent people and put them in jail for a long time.”

Another former prisoner, Habib Rahman, 20, said he was arrested because he had a weapon in his home.

“They told me, ‘You are against us, you are anti-American and anti-government and you are fighting with us,’ ” said Rahman, from Paktia. “At that time in our area everyone had weapons. I was innocent and I hadn’t participated in any fighting.”

Rahman said that he was treated harshly at Guantanamo, and that one time he was kept awake for 38 hours while being questioned about ties to terrorists.

“The last time they tortured me like that was four months ago,” he said. “They were kicking us all the time, beating us with their hands.”