Monday, 26 April 2021_US President Joe Biden’s decision to fully withdraw American troops from Afghanistan raises questions about the fate of the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo Bay as well as the future of the detention center, according to experts.
At least two prisoners, who have already challenged their detention, are updating their complaints to include the announced Sept. 11 troop pullout as a reason for their release, according to a report by The Hill on Sunday.
The controversial prison currently holds 40 inmates, down from 800 after its 2002 opening in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on US soil.
Six of those inmates have been cleared for transfer and seven have been charged in the military commission system, including the five 9/11 suspects, The Hill reported.
Congress’ war authorization has been used as the legal justification for indefinite detention at Guantanamo, but it remains unclear that would continue after US troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, The Hill noted.
“I think the short answer is that we just don’t know,” Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, told The Hill about the possible effect troop pullout will have on the prison.
“It clearly provides the remaining Guantanamo detainees with a new ground on which to challenge the legal basis for their continuing military detention, and one that is not necessarily foreclosed by existing precedent,” he told the news outlet.
Vladeck, however, added that it is not clear whether courts will accept those arguments as they might simply say the so-called fight against al-Qaeda terrorist group has not ended yet.
“But it’s not at all clear that courts will be sympathetic to those arguments, not just because they haven’t been to date, but because the Executive Branch is likely to argue that the conflict with al-Qaeda isn’t ending just because we’re leaving Afghanistan.”
During the 2020 presidential race, Biden’s campaign said that he would continue to support closing the detention center but did not say how he would do it.
His administration is currently reviewing the facility with the intention of closing it and 24 Senate Democrats are pushing that.
They sent a letter to Biden last week, saying that he could close the facility with “sufficient political will and swift action,” according to The Hill.
“After years of indefinite detention without charge or trial; a history of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; and multiple attempts at a thoroughly failed and discredited military commission process, it is past time to close Guantanamo’s detention facility and end indefinite detention,” read the letter spearheaded by Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
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