JURIST - Paper Chase: US to maintain control of foreign, new detainees at Afghanistan prison: NYT

[JURIST] Government officials from both the US and Afghanistan have said that the American military will maintain control over foreign detainees [NYT report] at Bagram Air Base [official website; JURIST news archive] in Afghanistan for the indefinite future, and will also continue holding and screening newly captured Afghans. According to the New York Times, America's commitment to the control and maintenance of dozens of foreign prisoners comes despite preparing to hand over its detention operations to the Afghan government on September 9, as agreed to [Al Jazeera report] in March in a pact preceding the countries' Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement [text, PDF]. Given that the March agreement covered only the 3,100 Afghan detainees at the time of its enactment, there has been relative uncertainty as to the fate of the additional 600 detainees added to Bagram since the signing. While concerns of arbitrary detentions have been raised [AFP report] by the Afghan government, namely that the agreement's no-trial detention system is contrary to the Afghanistan Constitution [text, PDF], William Lietzau [official profile], the Pentagon's top detainee policy official, maintains that the system is lawful as long as the war continues. The Afghan government has refused to ratify the agreement.

In July it was reported that the US would retain control of about 50 non-Afghan detainees [JURIST report] at Parwan Detention Center at Bagram. At that time the US again had to defend its position by asserting that its agreement with Afghanistan did not cover foreign nationals. The detainees have allegedly been held without access to legal assistance, prompting some human rights activists to question the deal's legitimacy and expand upon the criticism that the Bagram facility has been "the other Guantanamo" since its opening [JURIST report] in 2009. The plan for Afghanistan [JURIST report] to take over the US military's Parwan Detention Center was crafted in January with a goal of transferring all responsibilities to the Afghan government within six months.