http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061001/ap_on_re_as/afghanistan_prisonKABUL, Afghanistan - Capt. Amanullah, a former mujahedeen commander, smooths his black beard with his palm and gives a deep and ironic laugh as he recounts his 14 miserable months in Bagram, the U.S. prison for terror suspects in Afghanistan.
"There were lots of stupid questions and accusations with no proof," said the 56-year-old veteran of combat against the Soviet occupation. He insists he was there only because Afghan rivals lied about him to the U.S. Army.
He's far from alone in his assertion of innocence — or his inability to make that heard for so long. Like many who have passed through the secretive jail set up after the fall of the Taliban regime, Amanullah found himself entangled in a system where he had no protection and no rights, and not even the pressure of public scrutiny that helped inmates at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or Abu Ghraib, Iraq.
"There's been a silence about Bagram, and much less political discussion about it," said Richard Bennett, the chief U.N. human rights officer in Afghanistan.
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Bagram's estimated 500 inmates are mostly Afghans, but also are believed to include Arabs, Pakistanis and some Central Asians. They wear the same orange jump suits and shaven heads as the "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo, but lack even the scant legal rights granted to the inmates at that facility, such as the right to appear at military hearings that assess whether they pose a security threat. In some cases, they have been held without charge for three to four years, rights workers say.