WASHINGTON — A Russian captured fighting with insurgents in Afghanistan and held for years at a detention facility near Bagram air base will be flown to the United States to be prosecuted in federal court, according to U.S. officials.
The move marks the first time a foreign combatant captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and held by the U.S military at Bagram will be transferred to the United States for trial, a decision the Obama administration has weighed for months.
With combat operations winding down, the administration’s authority to continue to hold the man was in question, and U.S. officials said Russia had little interest in getting him back.
The detainee, known by the nom de guerre Irek Hamidullan, is suspected of leading several insurgent attacks in 2009 in which U.S. troops were wounded or killed. He was captured that year after being wounded in a firefight.
Congress was recently notified that Hamidullan would be transferred to the U.S., officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the decision to prosecute him had not been released publicly.
Congress has barred the transfer to the United States for prosecution or continued detention of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but has not enacted a similar law preventing the movement of those held in Afghanistan.
A spokesman for the Justice Department’s National Security Division declined to comment. It is not clear what terrorism charges Hamidullan will face.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement that he thinks the Obama administration “is trying to undercut the military commission process,” by sending terrorism suspects captured overseas to federal court but that he accepted the decision on how to handle Hamidullan.
National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan declined in a statement to discuss specifics but said “the president’s national security team examined this matter and unanimously agreed that prosecution of this detainee in federal court was the best disposition option in this case.”
Hamidullan, also a veteran of the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan, is expected to be tried in the Eastern District of Virginia, U.S. officials said.
With Hamidullan’s expected transfer, Pentagon officials think they will be on track to empty the Parwan detention center near Bagram of non-Afghan detainees before the end of the year. The United States continued to hold a number of third-country nationals at the facility after it turned over control of all Afghan prisoners to the authorities in Kabul.
