London Lawyers: 60 Guantanamo Detainees Were Kids
A British legal rights group asserts that 60 of the Guantanamo detainees have been children under 18.
They include at least 10 detainees still held at the US base in Cuba who were 14 or 15 when they were seized - including child soldiers who were held in solitary confinement, repeatedly interrogated and allegedly tortured.
The disclosures threaten to plunge the Bush administration into a fresh row with Britain, its closest ally in the war on terror, only days after the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, repeated his demands for the closure of the detention facility. It was, he said, a "symbol of injustice".
The U.S. says it is not holding any juveniles now. That doesn't mean it wasn't at one time.
Because the detainees have been held in Cuba for four years, all the teenagers are now thought to have reached their 18th birthdays in Guantanamo Bay and some have since been released.
After the DoD released the names of the detainees, the British group, Reprieve, says:
They were able to confirm that 17 detainees on the list were under 18 when taken to the camp, and another seven were probably juveniles.
In addition, said Mr Stafford Smith, they had credible evidence from other detainees, lawyers and the International Red Cross that another 37 inmates were under 18 when they were seized. One detainee, an al-Jazeera journalist called Sami el Hajj, has identified 36 juveniles in Guantanamo.
| < Yearly Kos in the New York Times | Duke Lacrosse Case: More Details of Accuser's Changed Story > |
