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Lawyers: Some minors held at Guantanamo
from WebIndia.com
Entered into the database on Wednesday, June 15th, 2005 @ 08:50:54 MST


 

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Lawyers representing terror suspects at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba claim there may be six minors being held there.

Lawyer Clive Stafford Smith of London said in an interview with the New York Times one prisoner he represents said he was seized by local authorities in Pakistan about Oct. 21, 2001, a few months before his 15th birthday, and taken to Guantanamo at the beginning of 2002.

Barbara Olshansky of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which is matching volunteer lawyers with detainees, said she believes he may be one of six current detainees who were imprisoned at Guantanamo before their 18th birthdays.

Military authorities say the only juveniles at the detention center were three who were kept in a separate facility from the main prison and released in January 2004.

They don't come with birth certificates, said Col. Brad Blackner, the chief public affairs officer at the detention camp. Col. David McWilliams, the chief spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, said bone scans were used in some cases and age was determined by medical evidence as best we could.