<

U.S. Suspends Afghan Captive Flights
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
(17:30)
Reuters

WASHINGTON
The U.S. military says it has suspended flights of Afghan war captives to a U.S. Navy base in Cuba to expand makeshift jail facilities and coordinate intelligence gathered in the war on terrorism.

Officials at the Pentagon and the military's Southern Command headquarters in Miami said the secure flights to Guantanamo Bay, where 158 al Qaeda and Taliban "detainees" are already held in small, outdoor cage-like cells under tight guard, could resume as early as next week.

The move came amid harsh criticism o f treatment of the captives and as captured U.S.

Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh was being flown under tight guard to Washington to face trial in a federal court in nearby Alexandria.

The 20-year-old from California, who goes by his mother's name, left Afghanistan on a military cargo jet on Tuesday and was expected to land at Dulles International Airport later on Wednesday. He was expected to be escorted to a detention centre by U.S. marshals and appear before a federal magistrate as early as Thursday.

Civil rights groups and some foreign lawmakers have criticised treatment of shackled detainees on flights to Guantanamo Bay and at the base as well as U.S. refusal to designate them as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.
(More: Financial Times News Source)
2002 © Reuters, Ltd.

Dan