Afghan Detainees Sent Home to Face Closed-Door Trials

At least 32 detainees transferred from Guantanamo are being held in a high-security wing of the Pul-i-Charki prison near Kabul that was built with U.S. funds. (By Musadeq Sadeq -- Associated Press)

"We try to ensure that the trials are conducted to meet international fair standards," she said. "We do provide guidance and training. It's not oversight. We don't manage it and we don't run it. . . . They are Afghan trials, run according to Afghan laws."

Hodgkinson said 83 such cases have been tried in Afghan courts, with a conviction rate of about 80 percent. Many of the convictions have resulted in sentences of time served, meaning the detainees were released.

Afghanistan's attorney general, Abdul Jabar Sabit, said detainees are tried on the basis of a 1987 Soviet-era national security law. Much of the evidence in the Block D cases comes from U.S. military investigators. Sabit said Afghan prosecutors review the detainees' files and in some cases attempt to gather additional evidence before proceeding to trial.

"The evidence that the Americans present to us is evaluated very strictly. If the collection of evidence is not strictly in accordance with our laws, then I'm quite sure the prosecutor has taken the right steps to get the evidence," he said. "In some cases, new evidence emerges; then the person is reinvestigated."

Afghan and American lawyers familiar with the legal process say prosecutions largely follow the framework employed by the Bush administration at Guantanamo. They argue that numerous violations of international legal standards have occurred in Block D proceedings and contend that judges have failed in many instances to call witnesses or examine evidence. Afghan defense lawyers assigned to detainees' cases have been denied access to their clients' investigative files, they said, and often have been barred from meeting with their clients before their trials. In many cases, defense attorneys said they have had little more than a few days to prepare for trials that can end in years of confinement for their clients.

"According to Afghan law, these cases should be resolved and heard in nine months, but in these cases none of them is done according to the law. The detainees were arrested by foreigners, charged by foreigners and kept in prison for years without normal due process," said Mohammed Afzal Mullahkeil, an Afghan lawyer who is handling the cases of about 25 Block D detainees. "When they were sent from Guantanamo, they were told, 'You are innocent and you will be free once you're in your country.' When they got to Bagram, they just brought them to Block D and said they should have a second trial."

In at least 10 cases, detainees were tried at Block D without lawyers present in trials that lasted less than an hour and ended with sentences of up to 15 years, said Horowitz, of One World Research, who recently traveled to Afghanistan to investigate cases. One Afghan government official who witnessed several trials said that in at least one instance, six Block D detainees were tried simultaneously in fewer than 90 minutes.

Tina Foster, an American lawyer whose nonprofit organization, the International Justice Network, represents several Afghan detainees, visited Block D this year. One trial she witnessed lasted 15 minutes, she said, and the evidence consisted of little more than a reading from an investigative document. No witnesses were presented, and the panel of judges asked few questions.

"The Afghans are essentially rubber-stamping what the occupiers of their country are suggesting," Foster said. "Even if the U.S. isn't there holding a gun to the judge's head, it doesn't mean that they don't ultimately have a hand in what's happening."

The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, William Wood, said many Guantanamo detainees have gone through the Afghan judicial system, served time and been released.

"There is a judicial process, and it is trying to reach some sort of conclusion about guilt, innocence, appropriateness of sentence," he said. "It is not where it should be. I don't want to claim that."

'Where Is Mullah Omar?'

For Sabar Lal, the former commander of an Afghan border patrol unit in the eastern province of Konar, the odyssey to Block D began in August 2002.