US says it held 12 Juveniles at Gitmo

[unhappycamper]

US says it held 12 Juveniles at Gitmo
November 17, 2008
Associated Press

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. has revised its count of juveniles ever held at Guantanamo Bay to 12, up from the eight it reported in May to the United Nations, a Pentagon spokesman said Sunday.

The government has provided a corrected report to the U.N. committee on child rights, according to Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon. He said the U.S. did not intentionally misrepresent the number of detainees taken to the isolated Navy base in southeast Cuba before turning 18.

"As we noted to the committee, it remains uncertain the exact age of many of the juveniles held at Guantanamo, as most of them did not know their own date of birth or even the year in which they were born," he said.

A study released last week by the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas concluded the U.S. has held at least a dozen juveniles at Guantanamo, including a Saudi who committed suicide in 2006.

"The information I got was from their own sources, so they didn't have to look beyond their own sources to figure this out," said Almerindo Ojeda, director of the center at the University of California, Davis.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/us-says-it-held-12-juveniles-at-gitmo.html?col=1186032310810