US to review how many juveniles it detained at Guantanamo

FRANK JORDANS
AP News

May 22, 2008 16:48 EST

U.S. officials said Thursday they will review whether more juveniles were detained at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay than the eight they have reported.

The U.S. told a U.N. committee on child rights last week that "no more than eight juveniles, their ages ranging from 13 to 17 at the time of their capture," have ever been detained at the facility in remote eastern Cuba.

But according to a list obtained by The Associated Press two years ago under the Freedom of Information Act, several more persons may have been juveniles when they were first detained.

Presented with the documents Thursday by the AP, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Sandra Hodgkinson said the lower figure was based on the best information in U.S. databases.

"We're happy to go back to cross-reference it and if there's a need to update that report, then we certainly will," she said.

Rights groups say it is important for the U.S. military to know the real age of those it detains because juveniles are entitled to special protection under international laws that the U.S. has signed up to.

One of the discrepancies is Muhammed Al-Qarani, a citizen of Chad, who according to health records entered the U.S. detention center on Feb. 9, 2002. In a separate document listing all detainees at the facility, Al-Qarani's date of birth is given as Jan. 1, 1986, making him 16 when he arrived there.

"Our records do not have him listed as having been a juvenile at the time of capture," said Hodgkinson.

Rights groups say that juveniles transferred to Guantanamo are entitled to special treatment as former child soldiers, even after they become adults.

U.S. officials say only two former juvenile detainees remain at the island base.

Canadian Omar Khadr, now 21, was captured in July 2002 and is charged with murder for allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. special forces soldier. Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who the military says is about 23, faces charges of attempted murder for a 2002 grenade attack that wounded two U.S. soldiers.

The U.S. told the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child in Geneva that about 500 more juveniles are currently being held in Iraq in connection with the fighting going on there.

"The very vast majority were between the ages of 16 and 17," Hodgkinson said. She added that all juveniles held receive additional care including family visits, special legal representation and education.

Hodgkinson said the juveniles were detained for their own safety and that of others, because armed groups are known to recruit minors to carry out bombings and other military activities.

The U.N. committee will issue a report later this year about U.S. compliance with two "optional protocols" � on children in armed conflict and on the sale of children � that Washington has committed itself to.

They are separate from the broader 1998 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child that all nations in the world except the United States and Somalia have ratified.

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Yeah, thats how you stop terrorism... You might as well get all their names now, because chances are we just created the next generation.

Now I'm not saying that some of these kids haven't done something, but it's already come out that some of the Terror Detainees haven't done a damned thing, so it's likely that some of these CHILDREN haven't done anything either, but I bet they really hate America now.