Prisoners 'to get Afghan trials'

By Andrew North
BBC correspondent in Kabul

Rights groups have criticised US treatment of detainees

The American military in Afghanistan has said prisoners it is holding there will eventually be handed over for trial in Afghan courts.

A US military spokesman said most of the detainees posed no major threat, but that the Afghan judicial system was unable yet to deal with them.

It is unclear if the move forms part of a long-delayed review by the US of its Afghan detention centres.

The report was prompted by revelations of abuse in Iraq.

Under pressure

The US military said earlier this year it was holding more than 300 people in about 20 locations across Afghanistan, most at its Bagram and Kandahar bases.

None has been charged with any crime.

At a news conference on Wednesday, US spokesman Major Scott Nelson said most did not pose a threat to international security.

The US has undertaken a full review of its Afghan detention centres

Anyone considered to be in this category had been moved to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

However, remaining detainees had to stay in US custody, he said, because they were still a threat to Afghanistan.

He said the country's judicial system was still not up to the task of trying and punishing them.

Major Nelson said Lieutenant-General David Barno, the US commander in Afghanistan, had agreed on the policy with Afghan President Hamid Karzai this month.

But he did not say when US forces would start handing over detainees to the Afghan authorities.

The announcement, which was made in answer to a question not as an official statement, comes at a time when the American military is under pressure to publish its internal report on the treatment of detainees.

Five people have died in US custody and there have been widespread allegations of torture.

The report, by a US general, was originally scheduled for release at the end of June.

The American-based group, Human Rights Watch, has criticised the delay.

It has also criticised a separate investigation just completed by former US defence secretary James Schlesinger into alleged detainee abuse in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

It says the report avoids examining in detail the deaths and alleged cases of torture.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission has also repeatedly asked for its staff to be given access to US detention centres, but so far only the Red Cross has been allowed to visit.