The troublesome legacy of Guantanamo Bay detention centre

As the world looks back at the 9/11 attacks that shook the world, and changed it, 20 years ago, PARSA VENKATESHWAR RAO JR writes about one of the most disturbing outcomes of the ensuing war on terror: the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and argues that all terror suspects must be tried only at an international judicial forum such as the International Criminal Court.

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ONE of the several troubling aspects of the war on terror in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States is the rounding up of hundreds of Islamic terror suspects in Afghanistan in November 2001, when the United States scored an easy victory over the then Taliban government, which was allegedly sheltering the Al Qaeda leadership, including Osama bin Laden.

The persons who were taken prisoner were denied the conventional prisoners-of-war status, which would have entailed the implementation of Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Most of the prisoners were sent to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp after it was established in 2002, and some of them were sent to secret Central Intelligence Agency "black sites" in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.