The US military on Monday handed over a controversial detention centre to the Afghan government, solving an issue that had complicated relations with President Hamid Karzai. The US military has been criticised for using controversial interrogation methods on prisoners at Bagram north of Kabul, which human rights group class as torture.
Some 3,000 people detained there are accused of having worked for al Qaeda or with radical Taliban militants. The agreement coincided with an unannounced visit to Afghanistan by US Secretary of State John Kerry. He was to meet Karzai, local media reported. This is Kerry's first visit since he was appointed as the top US diplomat.
General Joseph Dunford, US and Nato troops commander and Afghan Defence Minister Bismullah Mohammadi signed the agreement in Bagram military base, one of the biggest-US run military facilities in Afghanistan. The United States repeatedly postponed the handover over fears Taliban militants could be allowed to return to the battlefield.
"It has been a difficult process but we can smile today we are here," Dunford said, speaking at the handover ceremony. "Today it represents much more, it represents another milestone in our maturing relationship and it represents the increasing sovereignty of the Afghan people. This ceremony highlights an increasingly confident, capable, and sovereign Afghanistan."
The government has renamed it the Afghan National Detention Facility at Parwan. The United States has pledged an additional 39 million dollars to support the jail, according to a Nato statement. General Ghulam Farooq Barakzai, Afghan commander for the Parwan detention centre, said that the US military had transferred 4,000 inmates to their authorities since March 2012. Of the 3,013 people still at Bagram, 26 were freed on Monday, Barakzai said. "Some of them have completed the detention period and a number of others were found innocent by the court," he said. He added that the Afghan army would guard the centre.
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