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3 Guantanamo detainees sent to Saudi Arabia
The US Justice Department announced on Friday that three Saudi nationals had been transferred from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp back to Saudi Arabia, where they will undergo a "rehabilitation programme". Khalid Saad Muhammad, Abdalaziz Kareem Salim Al Noofayaee, and Ahmed Zaid Salim Zuhair were approved for transfer following the case review ordered by President Barack Obama, the department said in a statement. These detainees had already been "previously cleared for transfer by the prior administration" of president George W Bush, the statement read. "With these latest transfers, the US government has moved nine detainees over the course of this week to locations in Bermuda, Chad, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia," said Matthew Olsen, head of the Obama administration's Guantanamo Review Task Force. "This marks the largest number of transfers in a single week in well over a year and occurred, in large part, due to the willingness of foreign governments to work closely with the United States on this important issue and to assist in the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility," he added. Any inmates transferred to Saudi Arabia are subject to judicial review before they undergo a rehabilitation programme in the country, during which time they remain under the Saudi government's control, the Justice Department said. Since 2002, more than 540 detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo to at least 30 countries, the Justice Department said. Obama has vowed to shut the facility by January 2010. Many of the inmates have already been cleared for release, but US officials are having difficulty finding countries that will take them in, and meeting resistance at home to housing them on US soil. Posted by: 2009-06-14 |
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