The Al Jazeera story has this to say:
James Bays, reporting from Kabul, said the Afghans wanted the foreign detainees transferred before they take over.
"The Afghans wouldn't want to take control of these detainees when it came under Afghan control, and that's why America is talking to some of the governments where these prisoners come from to see if they will take these prisoners," he said.
However, in late February, Al Jazeera reported that Afghanistan's deputy justice minister told reporters
"As a first step we will soon send a team of judicial officials [and] in three months the Afghan national army will take control of the prison facility."
"By January 2011 we'll be in full control of the prison."
Transcript of video:
Voiceover: Two Afghan men, both detainees from Bagram Jail, being released in their home province of Kandahar. The American military say these men are no longer a threat, and they were handed over to tribal leaders in the area, who’ve told the Americans they will make sure they do not reoffend. They’re even given certificates marking their release. Handovers like this one have been taking place for four months now, steadily reducing the numbers inside the controversial jail, ahead of its transfer to Afghan control due at the end of this year.
Vice-Admiral Robert Harward (of Joint Task Force 435 and head of detainee operations): So I’m very optimistic that we can meet our objectives of 1 January, 2011.
Al Jazeera Reporter: Of course there’s one sticking point that not all of those you’re holding are Afghan nationals—you have foreign nationals as well.
Harward: Yeah, a very very small population. We’re currently coordinating with those governments. In fact, yesterday I spoke to several ambassadors—I paid office calls—they now have all that information; they’re coordinating back with their countries. Some are sending out some of their police officers to talk to them. So we’re working to move them back into the legal systems of their countries.
Voiceover: The military refuses to give figures for the numbers of prisoners in Bagram. One US source has told me about 30 of them are not Afghan, although a senior Afghan official estimates this figure is closer to 60. Human rights campaigners say the Afghan authorities shouldn’t take over the prison while foreigners are still being held there.
Akmal Dawi (Afghanistan Rights Monitor): It’s unclear whether they’ve violated Afghanistan’s laws or whether they have caused any harm to Afghanistan. They are picked up from everywhere in the world and brought into Afghanistan illegally; even their stay in Afghanistan is illegal. So Afghanistan will not have any legal basis upon which it can hold these people inside Afghanistan.
As of January of this year, when the transfer agreement was signed, the estimate of the total number of prisoners, including non-Afghan foreign nationals, held at Bagram was about 700.
The late February story said that Afghan army officials were scheduled to take over in three months, which would be late May. I have to wonder if that's still on track. The good news is that the most recent Al Jazeera story also had this from James Bays:
"At the same time, since the beginning of the year, there has been a series of releases of Afghan prisoners, substantially reducing the size of the prison population.
I would have liked to have seen a more quantitative analysis than "substantially reducing the size," but if it's true, it sounds like good news.