Some Freed Terrorism Detainees Return to the Fight
Just over 1 in 10 of those released from Guantánamo Bay are said to take up terrorist activities
The debate over closing the Guantánamo Bay military detention center in Cuba, long a campaign promise of President-elect Barack Obama, just got more complicated. New Pentagon intelligence asserts that 61 former Guantánamo Bay detainees, or about 11 percent of those who have been released, appear to have returned to involvement in terrorism.
While officials provided few details, the Defense Intelligence Agency numbers highlight the problem of what to do with the roughly 255 remaining detainees. Some of them have been cleared for release, subject to finding a country to take them.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates supports the closure of the Guantánamo detention center, but handling the remaining detainees remains one of the "thorny issues" that the president-elect and his new team will confront, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said today.
In many cases, the U.S. government is looking for other countries to take in prisoners with the guarantee that they will not be tortured or persecuted there. In other instances, the United States is seeking countries that will "at least monitor them effectively so they don't return to terrorism," said Morrell.
The new figures on recidivism, current though December 24, suggest that such monitoring will be among the new administration's most pressing goals. The latest numbers show "a pretty substantial increase in recidivism," said Morrell.
Prior to the new report, the recidivism rate among those who had been held at Guantánamo and released was 7 percent confirmed or suspected of "returning to the fight"—a total of 37 former prisoners. According to the new figures, that number has increased to 11 percent, or 61 total, with 18 confirmed and 43 suspected of involvement in terrorist activities.
"I don't think we're prepared to identify where each and every one of these people was released to and where they've since either went on to commit an act of terrorism or are suspected of going on to commit an act of terrorism," said Morrell. "Just that we have, you know, intelligence, in some cases evidence, to prove that they have indeed gone on to return to violence, and that's a real concern."
Longtime advocates of the closure of Guantánamo dispute the term "recidivism" and note that these figures could include those who were innocent but were radicalized as a result of mistreatment at the detention center.
- Read more about Guantánamo Bay issues.
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Reader Comments
Who cares
You seem to be under a misconception about the term NOT GUILTY. People are found not guilty every day (like the 4 cops that beat Rodney King and OJ in the LA murder trial) in the face of solid evidence to the contrary. Because of our protections the very evidence needed to convict might be excluded because of the way it was gathered, because of the nature of the evidence, or because someone didn't properly present the evidence in court. Those four cops were shown on video tape and there was a lot of evidence against OJ; but they all were found not guilty. The better example is OJ where Furman was found to be lying about a non-related thing (use of the "N-word), which led to an overall indictment of the LAPD's investigation.
Now, Al Hussein Osama was turned lose because of an evidentiary blunder--there was a hole in the chain of evidence for some bomb making tools. This man is found not guilty and, if he becomes a terrorist again he is returning to terrorism.
But who cares, let's put it that one-in-seven released from Gitmo become members of a terrorist faction. Does that make it better? That one in seven is still a terrorist who might just kill someone you know or love.
Do you feel better because we got the terminology correct? Excellent.
If you think we're winning the war on terrorism, you deserve to be at the next target and with over 200 more in Gitmo, that means at least 28 more terrorists will be running around wanting to kill American and Israli citizens, regardless of their age and regardless of where they are; at home, at work; on vacation; hiding in France...they don't care nor do they care if the people they kill are 1 day old or 100 years old.
One note, by killing babies they are killing innocents which is a sin in any religion.
How can they "return to involvement in terrorism" if they were not found to be guilty of involvement in terrorism? If they were found guilty, did they serve their sentence? What is the rate of recidivism in the US prison system? Thanks for throwing out this red herring to scare up the fear mongers...
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