A High Court judge has ruled that Britain’s detention policy in Afghanistan is “unlawful”.
Justice George Leggatt examined the case of Serdar Mohammed, an Afghan farmer who was arrested on suspicion of being a Taliban commander and was held in custody for 110 days by British forces without any charges.
The judge ruled on Friday that while Mohammed’s initial detainment was lawful, there has been no excuse for British forces to hold him more than 96 hours.
Mohammed claimed that he was not allowed access to a lawyer and British forces tortured him into giving a false confession after being transferred to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) facility in Lashkar Gah.
Last week, an Afghan fact-finding committee said that it had uncovered secret jails in southern Afghanistan run by US-led foreign forces.
The commission was appointed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to probe jails run by US and British forces in the country.
“We have conducted a thorough investigation and search of Kandahar Airfield and Camp Bastion and found several illegal and unlawful detention facilities run and operated by foreign military forces,” said Abdul Shakur Dadras, the head of the committee.
Dadras also noted that the committee members were sent to Kandahar and Helmand provinces to review the jails at two foreign forces’ bases — Kandahar Airfield, controlled by the US forces, and Camp Bastion run by the UK military.
The US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement that it was aware of “their investigative team looking into the detention facilities in Kandahar and Helmand.”
The issue is considered as the latest dispute over the detention of Afghans by US-led foreign forces.
Earlier this year, the Afghan government freed dozens of detainees held in the US-run Bagram prison.
In November 2012, President Karzai ordered Afghan forces to take control of the prison and accused US officials of failing to fully comply with the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding on Detentions signed between Kabul and Washington.
According to human rights groups, the Bagram detainees were abused and kept in solitary confinement in windowless cells.
HRM/MHB/MAM
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