U.S. set to release 100 Guantanamo prisoners

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- More than 100 men and boys will be released in the next two months from the U.S. jail for terrorism suspects in Cuba, including a teenager who allegedly killed an American special operations soldier, a U.S. military official said.

The first of the two new releases is scheduled for the end of December, and the other in January, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The official did not say where the prisoners would be sent and a military spokeswoman declined Sunday to provide details about future releases from the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"We do expect there will be other transfers but because of operational procedures, I can't talk about any details," Lt. Col. Pamela Hart said. "We only talk about detainees movements after an operation is complete."

The military official who spoke on condition that his name not be revealed said that one of the boys who would be released shot and killed a special operations soldier in Afghanistan, where a U.S.-led coalition ousted the Taliban regime in late 2001 and 11,500 American troops remain.

Alleged shooting

The military official did not provide details about the incident, including the boy's age, name or where or when the alleged shooting occurred. But he said that the boy apparently pretended to be dead, then opened fire on the American.

The official did not know why the boy was being released, but the military has said previously that the main purpose of the detention mission is intelligence gathering. It was not known if the boy would face detention or prosecution in his home country.

The United States holds about 660 prisoners from 44 countries at the base in eastern Cuba but the government declines to provide a breakdown of their citizenship, ages or the reasons they are being held.

The government has not charged them or given them access to lawyers.

The United States has released 88 of the prisoners since the government began holding suspects at the base in Cuba in January 2002.

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the official in charge of the detention mission, said Wednesday that the three youngest boys at the jail, who range from 13 to 15 would be released soon, but he did not give a date.

Some of the youths held at the base were sexually abused before their capture by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and they have received therapy at Guantanamo, the official said. The boys are kept separate from the adult population at the jail.

Separately, Britain and the United States are negotiating a deal to send nine British detainees back home.

Clive Stafford Smith, a U.S.-based British human rights lawyer, told The Observer, a British newspaper, that two of the nine British detainees, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul, were likely to be released and not charged with a crime while the other seven would serve sentences in British jails after pleading guilty to unspecified charges in the United States.

The British Foreign Office declined to confirm the report and said that discussions with U.S. officials were continuing.

On Saturday, military officials announced another breach in security at the remote naval base in eastern Cuba.

Army Col. Jack Farr, a reservist on six-month assignment, was charged by the U.S. military with transporting secret documents illegally and lying to investigators, the U.S. Southern Command in Miami said.