Political calculations may trump evidence in Afghan prisoners release

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Stars and Stripes, 15 January 2014

Reporting about the Afghan-US “standoff” about the BSA and the 88 Bagram prisoners, AAN’s Kate Clark opins that it may be attributed partly to the bumpy transition from a wartime detention regime, which included indefinite imprisonment for suspected insurgents, to civilian rules, which demand that evidence be presented in a timely manner for trial. Some of the guilty will inevitably go free in any civilian system where prosecutors bear the burden of proof, Clark said, but Karzai’s involvement in a process ostensibly independent of the executive branch could muddy the waters. “I think it opens him up for accusations that he’s politicizing the issue,” she said and added that Karzai’s involvement in a process ostensibly independent of the executive branch could muddy the waters: “I think it opens him up for accusations that he’s politicizing the issue.”