Returning Khalid Sheik Mohammed to Pakistan?

Gates and Rice reportedly want to move the Guantanamo prisoners into the US legal system. The Asia Times has the Cheney plan for closing Guantanamo.

Asia Times Online has learned that the Bush administration is considering a plan under which inmates would be returned to special facilities in their countries of origin, where they would be treated on a case-by-case basis. There are an estimated 65 or so Pakistanis in Guantanamo, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.

These special jails would be administered jointly by American and local security staff. At the same time, the new jails in allied countries would also house new suspects netted in the "war on terror".

A top Pakistani official told Asia Times Online that a special facility has already been built in the city of Faisalabad, adjacent to Faisalabad Central Prison. Another such facility is under construction in Multan and is expected to be completed within the next few months. Work on a detention center adjacent to Adyala Jail in Rawalpindi, the capital Islamabad's twin city, has just started.

These facilities are being funded by the US and will fall under the jurisdiction of Pakistan's Ministry of Interior. Special staff will be deputed to the centers to work in conjunction with US officials.

The Asia Times Online contact said similar facilities will be established in Afghanistan, Egypt and other countries sympathetic to the "war on terror".

But really, the entire thing shorthands to this,

Washington is reluctant to abandon Guantanamo without arranging alternatives where suspects can be interrogated without the interruptions of "normal" legal procedures.

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