WASHINGTON a fresh trove of classified military files showed that the United States released dozens of “high-risk” Guantanamo prisoners and detained over 150 innocent men for years.
The 779 documents, part of a enormous cache of secret memos leaked to whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks last year, were made available to a select group of US and European media outlets, including The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, El Pais, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and La Repubblica.
Thousands of pages of files were said to disclose that most of the 172 prisoners who stay at the US naval base in southeastern Cuba — 130 of them — have been rated as posing a “high-risk’ threat to the United States and it is associates as if they are freed without being rehabilitated or supervised as needed.
Even more of the George W. Bush-era “war on terror” was expected about a third of the 600-some men who have already been transferred to third countries — were also recognized “high-risk” before being released or handed to other governments.
In a wearisome shock for the United States and its associates as they seek back to anti-government forces in Libya who are fighting to expel longtime strongman Moamer Kadhafi, the documents showed one of the rebels’ supposed trainers has closer ties to Al-Qaeda than previously thought.
Abu Sufian bin Qumu was engaged in aggressive extremist activities for two decades, previously training at two Al-Qaeda camps, fighting with the Taliban against the Soviet Union and the Northern Alliance and serving as a Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s driver in Sudan, according to National Public Radio.
He had spent a six-year period at Guantanamo and the United States agreed to hand him over to Libyan authorities in 2007 followed by the request of Kadhafi, NPR added. Libyan higher authorities freed him last summer.
The Times said the files, which detail the background of each of the 779 people who have passed through the prison facility since 2002, revealed little about harsh investigating strategies used at Guantanamo, including sleep deprivation and simulated drowning, that sparked widespread condemnation around the world.
But a number of prisoners were said to have made up false claims of torture.
On the whole, US military analysts considered only 220 of the people ever in custody at Guantanamo to be dangerous extremists, The Daily Telegraph said, while another 380 people were considered to be low-ranking foot soldiers who traveled to Afghanistan or were part of the Taliban.
At least another 150 people were innocent Afghans or Pakistanis, including drivers, farmers and chefs, who had been curved up as part of anxious intelligence gathering in war zones and were then in custody for years due to mistaken identity or simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
