We detain kids?

Forgive me for being a few weeks, perhaps even a few years, late to this story, but who knew that Pakistani intelligence and the CIA held the sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, aged seven and nine at the time, both before and after his father’s capture?

Earlier this month, six human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, released a report on 39 ‘disappeared’ detainees believed to be in U.S. custody somewhere in the world. The report also names wives and children of detainees who have been held and interrogated.

In September 2002, Yusuf al-Khalid (then nine years old) and Abed al-Khalid (then seven years old) were reportedly apprehended by Pakistani security forces during an attempted capture of their father, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was successfully apprehended several months later […]

After Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s arrest in March 2003, Yusuf and Abed Al Khalid were reportedly transferred out of Pakistan in U.S. custody. The children were allegedly being sent for questioning about their father’s activities and to be used by the United States as leverage to force their father to co-operate with the United States. A press report on March 10, 2003 confirmed that CIA interrogators had detained the children and that one official explained that: “We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children…but we need to know as much about their father’s recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care.”

Their father is, obviously, a mass murderer. But what legal grounds exist for states to transfer children out of the country, particularly without parental permission (obviously lacking in this case)? Were the younger Mohammeds really transferred to the United States? What happened to them? Details are incredibly sketchy. The Guardian reported earlier this month that family members haven’t seen the kids since they were apprehended.