Reply #59: 'US knew Guantanamo detainees were innocent'

[Judi Lynn]

'US knew Guantanamo detainees were innocent'
Agence France-Presse
Washington, April 25, 2011

The United States held hundreds of inmates who were either totally innocent or low-risk for years and released dozens of "high-risk" Guantanamo inmates, according to leaked classified files. The new leaks reveal that inmates were held without trial on the basis of often seriously flawed information, such as from mentally ill or otherwise unreliable co-detainees or statements from suspects who had been abused or tortured, The New York Times reported.

The Times was among a group of US and European media outlets that also included The Daily Telegraph, NPR, El Pais, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and La Repubblica to receive 779 documents from the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.

At least 150 were innocent Afghans or Pakistanis, including drivers, farmers and chefs, who had been rounded up as part of frantic intelligence-gathering in war zones and were then detained for years due to mistaken identity or simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The British daily said that overall, US military analysts considered only 220 of the people ever detained at Guantanamo to be dangerous extremists.

More:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/americas/US-knew-Guantanamo-detainees-were-innocent/Article1-689453.aspx