5 Detainees Ordered Released From Guantanamo

Friday, November 21, 2008 : According to the latest reports, US President-elect Barack Obama is already discussing how to close Guantanamo, but in the run-up to the presidential elections, the Bush administration demonstrated its unwillingness to acknowledge a bitter reality - that its system of trials for "terror suspects" are a failed and thoroughly discredited project - by filing charges against two more prisoners.

Faiz al-Kandari and Fouad al-Rabia are the first two Kuwaitis to be put forward for trial by Military Commission. Both are accused of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism, but their cases do nothing to suggest that the Bush administration has correctly identified them as terrorists worthy of war crimes trials. 

Kandari was seized during the Tora Bora campaign in December 2001, when members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were holed up in the Afghan mountains near Pakistan, and numerous other civilians were attempting to flee the chaos of war. The Pentagon has alleged that, between August and December 2001, he visited the Al-Farouq training camp (the main training camp for Arabs in the years before 9/11) and "provided instruction to Al-Qaeda members and trainees," that he "served as an adviser to Osama bin Laden," and that he "produced recruitment audio and video tapes which encouraged membership in Al-Qaeda and participation in jihad."

Read More