CIA Transfers Another Detainee From Secret Prison System

The US Defense department announced March 14 that the CIA had transferred a detainee held in secret for at least six months to the military prison camp at Guantánamo Bay. The transfer, the second since the Bush administration admitted the existence of the secret CIA prison network a year and a half ago, is further confirmation that the US continues to use secret prisons to illegally hold and torture prisoners.

The detainee, Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, was captured in Pakistan last summer by local police and handed over to the CIA in August. US officials described Rahim as a “high-level member of al Qaeda and a close associate of Osama bin Laden,” who helped in the hiding and escape of al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan following the US invasion. Rahim allegedly worked as a translator and an assistant to bin Laden.

In a memo circulated to agency employees, CIA director Michael Hayden also alleged that Rahim was plotting to attack US troops in Afghanistan with chemical weapons, although no such attack took place and no evidence was provided for the allegation.

Like thousands of other detainees held by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere, Rahim has not been charged with a crime, and has not had contact with legal or human rights groups.

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