The prison at Bagram, not something that is commonly referenced with regards to US detention facilities. While Guantanamo garners most of the world’s attention, the prison at the US base at Bagram is currently home to 630 prisoners, almost three times as many as are being held at Guantanamo…

“In 2005, following well-documented accounts of detainee deaths, torture, and “disappeared” prisoners, the U.S. undertook efforts to turn the facility over to the Afghan government. But thanks to a series of legal, bureaucratic and administrative missteps, the prison is still under U.S. military control. And a recent confidential report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has reportedly complained about the continued mistreatment of prisoners.

The ICRC report is said to cite massive overcrowding, “harsh” conditions, lack of clarity about the legal basis for detention, prisoners held “incommunicado”, in “a previously undisclosed warren of isolation cells,” and “sometimes subjected to cruel treatment in violation of the Geneva Conventions.” Some prisoners have been held without charges or lawyers for more than five years.”

And what would a US detention facility be without the initial denial of abuse only to be later recounted after the press did some digging…

“U.S. military officials in Afghanistan initially said the deaths were from natural causes. Lt. Gen. Daniel K. McNeill, the commander of allied forces in Afghanistan at the time, denied then that prisoners had been chained to the ceiling or that conditions at Bagram endangered the lives of prisoners.

But after an investigation by The New York Times, the Army acknowledged that the deaths were homicides. The prisoners were chained to the ceiling and beaten, causing their deaths. Military coroners ruled that both the prisoners’ deaths were homicide.”

Of course, the US is attempting to have the prisoners transferred to a new facility that is under Afghan control. Unfortunately, one of the entanglements stopping it from happening is the Afghan government’s refusal to adopt the current administration’s model that requires prisoners to be labeled ‘enemy combatants’ and therefore held outside of the statutes of the Afghan legal system.