Three years on, Guantánamo detainee, 78, goes home (Guardian)

[Eugene]

Three years on, Guantánamo detainee, 78, goes home

Hero's welcome for ex-Mujahideen commander with failing eyesight
and a walking frame

Declan Walsh in Kabul
Friday September 22, 2006
The Guardian

It's hard to picture Haji Nasrat Khan as an international terrorist. For a start,
the grey-bearded Afghan can barely walk, shuffling along on a three-wheeled walking
frame. His sight is terrible - he squints through milky eyes that sometimes roll
towards the heavens - while his helpers have to shout to make themselves heard.
And as for his age - nobody knows for sure, not even Nasrat himself. "I think I am 78,
or maybe 79," he ventures uncertainly, pausing over a cup of green tea.

Yet for three and a half years the US government deemed this elderly, infirm man
an "enemy combatant", so dangerous to America's security that he was imprisoned
at Guantánamo Bay.

-snip-

Then late last month, without warning, the US military let him go. Nasrat was flown
to Bagram airbase, north of Kabul, the same way he had left: blindfolded, handcuffed
and with his swollen half-paralysed legs chained to the floor. His lawyer was informed
of the release, by email, after Nasrat had left Guantánamo Bay.

-snip-

Campaigners say Nasrat's case typifies the injustices of America's secretive global
detention network. He is not Guantánamo's oldest detainee ever - that distinction fell
to another Afghan, Faiz Muhammad, who was dubbed "Al Qaida Clause" by his captors
and claimed to be 105 when released in 2002.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1878415,00.html

[yellowcanine]

1. Makes me feel safer to know we are locking up those dangerous terrorists

until they are too old to be of any harm.:sarcasm:

[Joanne98]

2. American tortures senior citizens!