American Civil Liberties Union

Last weekend , NOW on PBS explored indefinite detention in its latest episode, "After Guantánamo." In it, host David Brancaccio interviewed Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, who was tasked with prosecuting Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Guantánamo detainee accused of 9/11-related crimes. In 2004, Couch became the first of six military lawyers to resign from prosecuting the military commissions cases assigned to them because they disagreed with the commissions' flawed system of "justice," which includes using evidence gained through torture and rigging the trials in favor of a conviction.

After nearly seven years in U.S. custody, Mohammed Jawad was released and flown home to Afghanistan over the weekend. One of his defense attorneys, Marine Maj. Eric Montalvo, accompanied Jawad as a private citizen on this trip home.

The ACLU represented Jawad in his habeas corpus case in federal court, which challenged his illegal detention and prosecution before the military commissions at Guantánamo. Of the 200-plus Gitmo detainees who still remain, two facts stood out with Jawad's case. First, his age: he was a teenager, possibly as young as 12, when he was captured. And second, Jawad's former lead military prosecutor, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, left the military commission in September 2008 because he did not believe he could ethically proceed with Jawad's case.

This morning, NPR reported that Marine Maj. Gen. Doug Stone has released a 700-page report to military officials about the detainees at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The doozy: in his opinion, 400 of the 600 detainees currently at detention center "can be released, as there is little evidence against them and they pose no threat."

In April, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Departments of Justice, State, Defense and the CIA asking for the release of basic information such as how many people are imprisoned at Bagram, who they are, how long they’ve been detained, and where and under what circumstances they were captured. We also requested records about the process for prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as "enemy combatants."

Today, we sent a letter to the Department of Defense (DOD), asking them to reconsider their refusal to turn over information about the detention facility at Bagram in Afghanistan. The request is connected to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request we filed earlier this year with the Departments of Defense, Justice and State and the CIA for documents related to the detention and treatment of prisoners at Bagram.