Disappearing Act
While looking into the fate of hundreds of former detainees at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Andrew O. Selsky of the Associated Press asked a simple question that should be in every reporter's arsenal: "And then what happened?" U.S. government officials responded by saying they didn't know. So Selsky and the AP's worldwide network of reporters set out to discover what had happened to these former prisoners, once deemed "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth," who had been transferred from Guantanamo to other countries. The result of their search is this week's stunning revelation that out of the 245 former Guantanamo detainees they were able to find, 205 were either cleared of charges or freed without being charged by the countries where they were sent. Either highly dangerous men were set free, Selsky reports, or they weren't as dangerous as the U.S. government originally claimed when putting them behind bars without trial. Props to Selsky and the AP crew for some first-rate sleuthing.