US: The US government has released the most extensive list yet of the hundreds of detainees who have been held at the Guantánamo Bay prison - nearly all labelled enemy combatants but only a handful of whom have faced formal charges.
In all, 558 people were named by the Pentagon yesterday in response to a freedom of information lawsuit by the Associated Press. They were among the first swept up in the US war on terrorism for suspected links to al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
The list is the first official roster of Guantánamo detainees who passed through the combatant status review tribunal process in 2004 and 2005 to determine whether they should be deemed "enemy combatants".
Those named are from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and 39 other countries. Many have been held at the US prison at Guantánamo Bay for more than four years.
Some names are familiar, such as David Hicks, a Muslim from Australia charged with fighting US and coalition forces in Afghanistan. He is one of 10 detainees selected to be tried by a military tribunal, on charges of attempted murder, aiding the enemy and conspiracy to commit terrorism.
Hicks allegedly fought for the Taliban. Australian news media have said British authorities contend he admitted undergoing training with British Islamic extremists, including attempted shoe-bomber Richard Reid.
Lesser known detainees listed include Muhammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who reportedly was supposed to be the 20th hijacker in the September 11th terror attacks. US authorities denied al-Qahtani entry at Orlando, Florida, before the hijackings, but testimony in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial quoted an al-Qaeda leader as describing al-Qahtani as the last hijacker for the mission.
Others on the list, such as an Afghan identified only as "Commander Chaman", remain mysterious. The largest number of detainees - 132 - came from Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan followed with 125, then Yemen with 107.
Pentagon spokesman Lieut Col Todd Vician said the list had been accessible to the International Committee for the Red Cross, but the Department of Defence had determined it was now "prudent" to release the list to the public.
The US government had previously declined to release any list of names except the 10 who have been formally charged.
The Pentagon still has not provided a full list of all the more than 750 prisoners that the military says have passed through Guantánamo, with roughly 200 names which did not appear.
The release of the list, ordered by a federal judge, came amid wide criticism of the almost total secrecy surrounding the Guantánamo Bay detention centre, where the United States now holds about 490 detainees.
The combatant status hearings at Guantánamo were held from July 2004 to January 2005. Of the 558 detainees who received a hearing, the panels classified 38 as "no longer enemy combatants" and the military later released 29.
The remaining nine, including an undisclosed number of ethnic Uighurs who cannot be sent back to their native China because of the possibility of persecution, are being held in a part of the detention centre with extra privileges known as Camp Iguana, a military spokesman said. - (AP)