For the first time, details of Camp Delta inmates released to public
The US government has been forced to release documents giving details of those being held at Guantanamo Bay after years of refusing to do so.
The 5,000 pages of transcript were handed over by the Pentagon on the order of a judge in response to legal action brought under the Freedom of Information Act by the news agency Associated Press. Much of the Bush administration's "war on terror" remains shrouded in overwhelming secrecy. The US government has kept almost all information about the detainees secret since opening the prison in January 2002.
The transcripts made public only reveal unclassified information. The detainees and their legal representatives are not allowed to know, for example, what other evidence the US authorities may have on them. However, even this limited glimpse into the closed world of Camp Delta shows the arbitrary nature of the arrests which led to hundreds being incarcerated, without charge, thousands of miles from home. The Bush administration dismisses the detainees' claims of innocence without trying them. "They're bomb-makers,'' Vice-President Dick Cheney said recently. "They're facilitators of terror. They're members of al-Qaida and the Taliban. If you let them out, they'll go back to trying to kill Americans."
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Emad Abdalla
Mr Abdalla, a 25-year-old student from Yemen, was captured at a university in Faisalabad, in Pakistan, where he was studying the Koran. He is accused of travelling to Afghanistan to participate in jihad.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article349562.ece