Issue # 1426      2 September 2009

Family to sue over Guantánamo adolescent’s jailing

Tom Mellen

The family of one of the youngest prisoners ever held at the US prison camp at Guantanamo will sue Washington to compensate him for abuse and an adolescence lost to nearly seven years in a cage. Mohammed Jawad returned to Afghanistan last week after a military judge ruled that he had been coerced into confessing that he threw a grenade at an unmarked vehicle in Kabul in 2002.

After that attack, which wounded two US special forces commandos and their interpreter, Afghan police delivered Mr Jawad into US custody. About a month later he was sent to the notorious Guantanamo camp.

Mr Jawad and his family say that he was 12 when he was arrested and that he is now 19, but the Pentagon maintains that a bone scan showed he was “about 17” when taken into custody. What is not in doubt is that Mr Jawad was submitted to various types of torture while imprisoned, including sleep deprivation and beatings.

Major Eric Montalvo, one of the military lawyers who was defending him at a military court, said that his family now intends to sue for compensation in US courts. Addressing a Kabul press conference, Major Montalvo said: “The way forward right now is to avail the Afghanistan government and the US government of funding to help train him and get him back to normalcy.

“There is no difference between being confined in Guantanamo Bay or being left out in the wild without assistance, so to not give him any compensation – any way to help him back to civilisation – is unacceptable.”

US Justice Department officials said that the criminal investigation of Mr Jawad was still open, but his transfer back to Afghanistan made prosecution unlikely.

The judge who ordered him released said that Washington’s case was an “outrage” and “full of holes.” On Monday Mr Jawad was welcomed back to Afghanistan by President Hamid Karzai, who said he hoped that improvements to the country’s justice system would soon mean that his government could prosecute its own citizens accused of attacking occupation forces.

Last October, a military judge at Guantanamo threw out Mr Jawad’s confession. The judge found that Mr Jawad had initially denied throwing the grenade but changed his story after Afghan authorities threatened to kill him and his family. US District Judge Ellen Huvelle ordered him released nine months later.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has said that the US should compensate prisoners such as Mr Jawad and prosecute any and all officials suspected of having had a hand in the torture of “war on terror” detainees.

Morning Star

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