Pakistan frees 17 ex-Gitmo inmates. Will our troops see them again?
Pakistanis freed from Guantanamo Bay claimed Monday they saw American interrogators throw, tear and stand on copies of Islam's holy book, and one former detainee said naked women sat on prisoners' chests during questioning.
The Pentagon denied the accusations and said al-Qaida training manuals instruct prisoners to make such false charges.
The men acknowledged they were aware of the international furor caused by previous reports about Quran desecrations. Such reports triggered protests across the Islamic world and deadly riots in Afghanistan last month.
Seventeen Pakistanis were freed Monday from a jail in this eastern city, where they had been held since their release nine months ago from the U.S. prison for terror in Cuba. A Pakistani official said each had been "declared innocent by America" and cleared of involvement in terrorism by Pakistani intelligence.[...]
All six said they were arrested in Afghanistan after going there to fight the U.S.-led coalition that ousted the hard-line Taliban regime in late 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.
"During interrogation, whenever I would make a reference to the Quran they would hit me in the face with a copy (of it). They would tear it into pieces. They would tell me that Quran teaches us terrorism," said Salahuddin Ayubi, a 31-year-old from Rajanpur in eastern Pakistan.
[Personally, I believe that the Quran does teach them terrorism and I wish our guys at Gitmo had done this, but I'll betcha a steak dinner they didn't!--Jen]
"They would throw the Quran against the roof, which would tear it into pieces and they would say 'This is the real source of terrorism,'" Ayubi said. "This happened several times in my interrogation."
Hafiz Ahsan, a 26-year-old Lahore tailor who said he was arrested three years ago in southern Afghanistan during the "jihad" against America - claimed he saw interrogators stand on the Quran and throw the book in urine.
[These jihadis are really fixated on urine. Keep reading.]
"Our interrogators would stand on the Quran and they would ask, 'Call your God and ask him to rescue you,'" he said. "They would throw Quran in a bucket of urine. They would tear the Quran and throw it at our faces. All this happened in front of our eyes. It was a routine."
He claimed inmates staged a hunger strike in protest, and were then tortured with electric shocks.
[Now I know this didn't happen!--J.T.]
Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico, a Pentagon spokesman, said inmates at Guantanamo are treated humanely and there are "adequate standard operating procedures in place to ensure detainee religious faith is respected."
He said al-Qaida taught detainees to make false abuse allegations.
[...]
A Pentagon report released this month confirmed five cases in which U.S. guards at Guantanamo mishandled the Quran, including incidents in which one copy of the book was splashed with urine and another was stepped on.
[You know, the MSM should be stood up against a wall and shot just for using inflammatorily "descriptive" words like "splashed!"
Sounds as if our soldiers drank a 6-pack of beer just so they'd have plenty of pee-pee for the Koran watering.]
The report concluded that none of the guards flushed the Muslim holy book down the toilet - an explosive allegation that surfaced in a Newsweek magazine report. The magazine later retracted the report.
The freed detainees said they had learned about the controversy from other inmates and prison officials.
Many Pakistanis went to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban, and scores ended up in Guantanamo. Pakistani officials say as many as 11 Pakistanis are among the 540 detainees still held. They say 67 Pakistanis have been freed from Guantanamo, and virtually all have been held in Pakistani custody since their return.
Tahir Ashrafi, a religious affairs adviser for Punjab province, said the 17 men had been cleared by Pakistani intelligence agencies after thorough interrogation and "have not been found to be involved in any kind of terrorist activity."
He said all the men signed statements saying they wouldn't join any anti-state activity.
However, one of the freed men, Khalil-ur Rahman, 21, from the eastern town of Gujrat, said he wouldn't hesitate to fight again. "If I get a chance to fight jihad again, I will definitely go. I will not miss it," he said.
These are the kind of detainees our bravest and finest are dealing with at Gitmo--liars and killers.
But dealing with them they are and doing a fine job.
I just wish we didn't have to let so many go...or allow them to have lawyers they don't deserve or need (Thanks again, Supreme Court!).
To echo Karl Rove last week, this is where the Liberals drag us, to treating international terrorist murder as "domestic crimes" where the killers have "rights" and lawyers and domestic criminal hearings.
It did not: Al Queda just sent another team to finish the job on 9/11.
Case closed on the Lib weenie way of dealing with these murderers.
As long as our wonderful soldiers will do the odious duty down there, I say we keep it open for business, 'cause the war's not over yet.
Of course, what Islamist thug would be scared to go there now, now that's it been revealed to be so humane and cushy?
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