Pentagon Releases List of Gitmo Detainees Who Returned to Terrorism

[struggle4progress]

Source: ABC

ABC News' Luis Martinez reports: A Pentagon report released today confirms that 14 percent of the 540 detainees -- or one in seven -- who were released from the detainee center Guantanamo Bay have been known or suspected of returning to terrorist activities.

"Based on a comprehensive review of available information as of mid-March 2009, the Defense Intelligence Agency reported 14 percent as the overall rate of former Guantanamo detainees confirmed or suspected of reengaging in terrorist activities. Of the more than 530 Guantanamo detainees transferred from Department of Defense custody to Guantanamo Bay, 27 were confirmed and 47 were suspected of reengaging in terrorist activity. Between December 2008 and March 2009, nine detainees were added to the confirmed list, six of whom were previously on the suspected list," the report states.

The full document can be viewed HERE ...

Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/05/pentagon-releas.html

---

Seton Hall Guantanamo webpage: http://law.shu.edu/ProgramsCenters/PublicIntGovServ/CSJ/Guantanamo-Reports.cfm
NYT Guantanamo docket: http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/detainees/372-said-ali-al-shihri

The DoD release (unsigned and not on DoD letterhead) claims 27 (confirmed) + 47 (suspected) = 74 returns to terrorism, out of 530 detainees: 74/530 = 14%. There is a discussion of 14 of the May 2008 names and a table of 29 names, which I haven't checked for overlaps: obviously 14 + 29 = 43 < 74. It might be good to have in hand Seton Hall's earlier report RELEASED GUANTÁNAMO DETAINEES AND THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: PROPAGANDA BY THE NUMBERS?, which discusses earlier versions of such DoD claims and contains such gems as "Maulavi Abdul Ghaffar was reportedly killed in a raid by Afghan security forces in September 2004. The name Maulavi Abdul Ghaffar does not appear on the list of detainees in Guantánamo. Two detainees with similar names were still imprisoned when Ghaffar was allegedly killed" -- since Maulavi Abdul Ghaffar once again appears in this list as "suspected"

[Hissyspit]

1. So we're releasing terrorists and keeping innocent people incarcerated?

What a great system we set up!

[EFerrari]

3. "Known or suspected" could mean anything, including people who have

talked to al Jazeera after they were released. Remember, this is the PENTAGON talking.

[Hissyspit]

7. Oh, don't worry. I wasn't assuming they are telling the truth...

[struggle4progress]

4. Dunno. I incline t'th'view that Bushista Dead-Enders are just makin up stuff, given

th'Seton Hall reports

[Hissyspit]

8. I guess I should have put the sarcasm thing in.

:D

[struggle4progress]

9. Yeah, I never use that thingy either

:toast:

[Downwinder]

2. I can guarantee that if I were locked up there,

whether or not I was terrorist before I would be one after, providing I had a mind left.

[struggle4progress]

5. That's a possibility -- though I'd guess most people would just be glad to get out

[mopinko]

20. big provided

i'm betting the ones they are letting out are the ones that they have broken completely.

what a crock of shit, tho. like they let anyone go that they had any semblance of evidence on.

[struggle4progress]

6. Guantanamo prisoner freed, arrested again (7 Feb 09)

His story shows difficulties of fighting terrorists, closing detention center
updated 7:00 p.m. ET, Sat., Feb. 7, 2009

... The first time Hafizullah was seized, in 2002, he spent five years at Guantanamo. In legal documents, the U.S. cites a source saying he helped al-Qaida and planned to kill a government official. But Hafizullah says he was turned in by a corrupt police chief as revenge, and the Afghan government cleared him of all charges in December 2007.

Less than a year later, in September, the U.S. raided his home. This time he was accused of treating sick Taliban as a pharmacist. Afghan officials have signed documents attesting to his innocence, but he is still in custody at Bagram Air Base, along with about 600 other prisoners ...

"We are fed up," says Ishaq Gailani, a member of President Hamid Karzai's government. "Bagram is full of these people who are wrongly accused. They arrest everyone — a 15-year-old boy and a 61-year-old man. They arrest them because they run away from their helicopters...I would run away too if I saw them. They don't know who is the terrorist and who is not" ...

In 1998 he languished in a Taliban jail for several months, beaten and accused of opposing the Taliban. Fearful of the religious militia, he relocated his pharmacy to his home. People in his rural district of Zormat called him doctor and came to him for treatment ...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29071536

[Proletariatprincess]

10. We don't even know what the definition of terrorism is.

OH! Now I get it. It is whatever they say it is.
So the released terrorists returned to terrorism. What a meaningless statement.
I think I really hate my government and I am ashamed to be an american at this time in history.

[Historic NY]

11. So all were let go by the Bush Administration except one if were to believe this.

[Festivito]

21. You found ONE? Last one listed released April 2008 in BUSH term.

Where did you find even one released "repatriated" during Obama's term?

[Historic NY]

24. I thought it said 09 my bad.

[santamargarita]

12. Bush leftovers making shit up - eradicate this Bush scum...

from government

[MilesColtrane]

13. Revised Headline: "Pentagon Releases Propaganda to Bolster Support For Indefinite Detention"

[struggle4progress]

14. Not merely "the Pentagon" (which is, after all, a huge organization) -- but someone specific inside

[buckrogers1965]

15. Return?

To return to something don't you have to have been doing it in the first place. Since the vast majority of people there are completely innocent in the first place, I think it would be more proper to say that 14% have been converted to freedom fighters because of their illegal kidnapping and torture.

Of course that is assuming that the Pentagon isn't counting talking to the press as a "terrorist" act. Which they do.

[creeksneakers2]

16. If they returned to terrorism

why haven't we been attacked?

[ima_sinnic]

18. really--oh, they mean they returned to fighting the real terrorists who invaded their country (nt)

[No Elephants]

17. Let's think this through. You are a terrorist to begin with, driven by a

hatred of the West that drives you to attack it violently, no matter how much "collateral damage" you cause.

Now, you are arrested and held in Gitmo, without being charged or provided with counsel or tried--in violation of the West's own laws. Now you are released. You hear about torture, see Abu Ghraib photos, etc.

Why did not every single one of these people "return" to terrorism?

[Wednesdays]

19. K&R

:kick:

[Festivito]

22. How carefully ABC avoids separating Bush from Obama times.

They run the dates, what dates they give, as overlapping. Leaving the stupid CONs (the ones not collecting money for being CONs) to think it's Obama's doing.

[bemildred]

23. Who are these morons?

When did Gitmo get converted into a reform school? This is just more of Cheney's "torture works" crap, with a little better disguise put on it.