An Afghan who has spent over six years at the US military's Guantanamo Bay prison was only around 12-years-old when he was detained, not 16 or 17 as his official record says, an Afghan rights group said on Tuesday. Interviews with the family of Mohammed Jawad, who like many poor Afghans does not know his exact age or birthday, showed he was probably not even a teenager when he was arrested in 2002, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said.
He was picked up by Afghan police in connection with a grenade attack in Kabul in which two US soldiers and their Afghan interpreter were wounded. He was transferred to US custody the same day and flown to Guantanamo in early 2003.
Commissioner Nader Nadery said in addition to being a minor at the time of his detention, Jawad was tortured and abused by the Afghan police and while at the Guantanamo detention centre, located at a US naval base in Cuba. The Commission is seeking his release and repatriation, and in the course of looking into his case found out he was probably considerably younger than his records showed.
Comments
Comments are closed.