Pakistan: Afghan leader: Good prisoners to go free, bad to be punished

Echoing the White House, Afghan leader Hamid Karzai pledged Friday that his country will not rest until terrorism is defeated and said prisoners will be screened to ensure that terrorists are not released.

Thousands of prisoners, many of them Afghans but others from Pakistan and other nations, are being detained in Afghan prisons, some in horrific conditions. The United States has also transferred al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners to a U.S. base in Cuba.

Speaking in Pakistan, where the issue arouses emotion, Karzai said his government intends to free all detainees who present no danger. Thousands of Pakistanis fought, died and were captured with the Taliban. More than 1,000 are imprisoned in one northern Afghan prison alone.

“They will have to be screened out and we have to make sure that that those people who are there are not released mistakenly,” Karzai said. “The good ones will definitely come home and the bad ones are a matter for all of us to deal with in a manner that we find suitable.”

London: Eye scan security tested at Heathrow Airport

Immigration officials on Friday began testing a pioneering security system that scans a passenger’s eye as an alternative to checking passports at London’s Heathrow Airport.

The five-month-long trial will allow up to 2,000 frequent visitors to pass through immigration simply by staring into a video camera that takes a close-up image of the iris. The system was developed by EyeTicket Corp. of McLean, Va.

Passengers will undergo identity checks by an immigration officer before being able to use the equipment. A digital image of each passenger’s iris is then stored in a computer data base.

Once enrolled, passengers simply look into the camera from a distance of about 10 inches and their identities are verified in seconds.

If the iris patterns match, an entry ticket is automatically printed.