Obama admin. considers keeping overseas prison

The administration of President Barack Obama is considering using Afghanistan's U.S.-run Bagram Air Base prison to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects captured far from a battlefield and who have not been charged with a crime - without any judicial oversight. A senior U.S. official reportedly told the Los Angeles Times that the Obama administration wants to detain and interrogate non-Afghan terrorism suspects captured in countries outside Afghanistan in a section of the Bagram prison, even after it turns the prison over to Afghan control. The U.S. government has stated its intention to turn over control of the Bagram detention facility to the Afghan government early next year. In May, a federal court ruled that unlike at Guantánamo, prisoners in U.S. custody at Bagram, including those who were captured far from any battlefield and brought to Afghanistan, cannot challenge their detention in U.S. courts. That decision paves the way for the U.S. government to use Bagram to detain terrorism suspects indefinitely.