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Children held at Guantanamo
29/05/2006 08:13 - (SA)
New York - The US military may have held up to 24 children at its "war on terror" prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facing the same conditions and interrogations as adult inmates, a US magazine reported on Sunday.
Some still at the prison have claimed through their lawyers that they have been beaten or abused, Time magazine said.
The number of prisoners under 18 could have been higher as date-of-birth data are imprecise, said Time magazine, which analysed Defence Department data. A Pentagon spokesperson told the magazine that no juveniles are currently held at the prison.
The weekly's report comes after the London-based human rights group Reprieve said more than 60 minors, some as young as 14, have been held at the prison.
Time described one prisoner, Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, as "the most famous kid" at the detention centre.
Captured in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15, Khadr faces a murder trial on charges that he threw a grenade that killed a US soldier, Time said. His lawyers are resisting the trial, saying Khadr was a child at the time of the alleged crime.
Against Geneva Convention
Many experts say that international laws, including the Geneva Conventions, require that child prisoners be separated from adults and receive education, Time said, adding that US federal law has similar requirements.
While US law defines those younger that 18 as juveniles, the Pentagon classifies as juveniles those under 16, the magazine said.
The Defence Department has never denied that some under-18 inmates were not segregated, it said.
"Many of these youths were subject to the same conditions and interrogations as the adults," Time said.
"Some kids - including three Afghans thought to be 10, 12 and 13 when they arrived - were segregated from adults, allowed to play sports and given lessons," it said.
"But in many ways, they were viewed as no different from their grownup fellow inmates," the magazine said, pointing to remarks made by General Richard Myers in April 2003.
The three "may be juveniles but they're not on a Little League team anywhere," Myers, who was at the time the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, referring to a children's baseball league.
"They're on a major-league team, and it's a terrorist team, and they're in Guantanamo for a very good reason - for our safety."
The three were released soon afterward, Time said.
Some 460 detainees are held at Guantanamo, which opened after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
- AFP
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