Kabul has a dismal record for providing either humane treatment or due process. The United States has no reason to believe it will change its practices now.
As recently as October, in fact, the United Nations reported that the Afghan intelligence service systematically tortures detainees, based on an investigation of 47 detention facilities in 22 provinces across the country.
Afghanistan’s justice system, meanwhile, is notoriously corrupt, failing to provide even the most basic elements of fair trials, including defense lawyers. When I was in Kabul last year, Afghan defense lawyers and human-rights activists told me that defense lawyers for the accused are still a rarity in much of the country. Even when a defense lawyer is assigned, that attorney often can’t meet with his client for many months, particularly in national security cases. In the meantime, the suspect may be tortured into confessing to a crime he didn’t commit.
Once the case gets to court, getting a judge to even listen to a defense lawyer’s objections or allow presentation of real evidence is challenging.
Most Afghans I interviewed insist that evidence is irrelevant in any case. The popular sentiment is that with money, anyone can buy his way out of jail. Those without, guilty or innocent, will be left to rot in prison.
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To the U.S. military’s credit, it’s been trying to improve Afghan trials in national security cases by providing mentoring and training for judges and prosecutors handling trials in a U.S.-built facility on the Bagram Air Base and ensuring the accused get a lawyer. But that’s made only small improvements so far, judging from the poor quality of the Afghan trial I observed at Bagram last year. ...
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