Detainees identified

last updated 8 January 2015

Guantánamo Bay, Cuba

The Defense Department this week released the names and backgrounds of more than 300 current and former detainees at Guantánamo Bay. The 5,000 pages of documents, made public in response to a lawsuit by the Associated Press, describe military tribunals that determined whether prisoners should be held as enemy combatants. While a handful of the men declared themselves enemies of America, most pled their innocence, describing themselves as low-level Taliban foot soldiers or wrongfully accused shopkeepers or herdsmen. “I am only a chicken farmer in Pakistan,” said one man. “My name is Abdur Sayed Rahman. Abdur Zahid Rahman was the deputy foreign minister of the Taliban.” A Pentagon spokesman said terrorists are trained to deceive. “The fact that they are claiming to be innocent shouldn’t surprise anyone.”