Swiss accept US Uighur detainees

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Switzerland has agreed to take two ethnic Uighur Chinese inmates from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The decision was made for humanitarian reasons, not diplomatic or economic ones, said Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf.

The decision goes against a parliamentary panel's recommendation not to accept the pair.

They were captured in Afghanistan with 20 other Uighurs but not later classified as "enemy combatants".

The Swiss justice minister said the two men did not pose a security risk and should be able to find jobs once they arrived at their new homes in the canton of Jura, in north-west Switzerland.

New homes

China says all of the Guantanamo Uighurs are terrorist suspects and has demanded their return to face justice.

But the US says it cannot repatriate them due to the risk of mistreatment.

Instead, the US has found homes in Albania, Bermuda and the Pacific island nation of Palau for most of the group.

Once the two are settled in Switzerland, which is expected in the next month, five of the Uighurs will be left in Guantanamo.

The Uighurs are a mainly-Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority based in western China's Xinjiang region.

US President Barack Obama has been trying to close the prison, but there are still about 200 detainees there.

Switzerland has taken one other Guantanamo inmate, an Uzbek man.