US Seeks to Change Image With New Prison

Eager to dispel its image as a rights abuser after "war on terror" prison scandals, the US has opened a new Afghan jail that critics say still falls short of basic legal standards.

The new Parwan Detention Facility has been built at the Bagram military base, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Kabul, where it will begin taking 640 inmates from a tented camp elsewhere on the base by the end of the month.

The prison will be run by Brigadier General Mark Martins, a US military lawyer who believes this "new Gitmo" will earn a reputation for justice.

The centre is also important to military efforts, with 100,000 US and NATO troops fighting an increasingly virulent Taliban-led insurgency.

Should US President Barack Obama decide to send more troops, this will lead to a new wave of detainees at Bagram, where inmates have increased six-fold in four years.

The new prison has been built in the shadow of prisons at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, where US authorities have detained people accused of involvement in terrorism without charge or trial.

Rights groups say Parwan does not address the issues of arbitrary detention or allowing detainees to be tried under Afghan law.

"The Bagram detention facility serves as a symbol of the US operating outside a proper legal framework in Afghanistan," said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific director.

"Given the real problems with the existing Afghan judicial system, the US and Afghan governments must immediately begin to establish a long-term solution that respects the rights of the detainees to have their cases heard in a court of law."

Bagram, which opened shortly after the US-led invasion drove the Islamist Taliban regime from power in late 2001, has earned a reputation for brutality, as well as being part of a secret system of detention and torture of suspects.

As the main US detention centre for enemy combatants, Bagram's reputation was set in stone after two detainees were killed within a week of each other in December 2002.

Bagram's military command said at the time they died of natural causes but it was later revealed they had been shackled, beaten and deprived of sleep. Six soldiers were convicted of minor charges in 2006.

After scandals at Abu Ghraib, near Baghdad, and Guantanamo, the US naval base on Cuba, Martins said this time they will get it right.

In an unprecedented move, the new facility was thrown open to media on Sunday, with Martins taking journalists on a guided tour.

He said the facility would succeed where its predecessors had failed because it would uphold principles of justice and due process, and seek to reintegrate its inmates with civilian society.

"This facility and these reintegration programmes represent real progress and in the coming months and years they will promote transparency and legitimacy," he said.

The international community supporting the Afghan government has made the "reintegration" of insurgents pivotal to a new strategy to bring an end to the war and handing responsibility for governance to Afghan authorities.

Martins says Parwan's new approach -- with review boards that will provide inmates with a form of due process -- is an essential part of that strategy.

Although the people held here will be represented by military officials rather than lawyers, they will appear in a court-like room before a panel of three American and Afghan military officials.

If the board is persuaded the accused no longer pose a threat to society, they will be released.

Inmates refused release must reappear before the board within six months, along with their own military-appointed "personal representative".

The only criteria for continued detention will be whether the detainee still represents a threat to civilian society, Martins said.

"Our intent is for the proceedings to be as open and as transparent as possible, and we will seek to welcome independent observers to watch the proceedings," he said.

Ultimately, the goal is to transfer the facility to the Afghan government, he said, though he gave no time frame.

Two Afghan officials who attended the briefing, General Haji Safeeullah of the defence ministry and General Arif Ahmadi of justice ministry, also declined to specify a date.