Two Guantánamo Detainees Are Involuntarily Repatriated to Algeria
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Version 0 of 1. WASHINGTON — The Pentagon announced Thursday that it had repatriated two longtime Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detainees to Algeria, where, fearing persecution, neither man wanted to be sent. The involuntary repatriations came a day after the Pentagon said that a Sudanese man would soon be repatriated to Sudan after serving out the portion of his sentence required by a pretrial agreement. He pleaded guilty in 2011 before a military commission to terrorism-related offenses. The moves have reduced Guantánamo’s inmate population to 162, and are a sign that the Obama administration has revived efforts to winnow the population following several years of stagnation after Congress imposed legal obstacles to transfers. Last spring, amid a widespread hunger strike among the detainees, President Obama recommitted himself to closing the detention center. He appointed new officials to take charge of the effort at the State Department and Pentagon, Cliff Sloan and Paul Lewis, and two other detainees were voluntarily repatriated to Algeria in August. Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, cited the revived effort in a speech this week on the administration’s human rights policies. She reiterated the call for Congress to remove the restrictions on transfers, saying they had “severely hampered” administration efforts to close the prison. “President Obama remains deeply determined to close the detention facility at Guantánamo,” she said Wednesday, adding, “We expect to announce more transfers in the near future.” The involuntary transfers to Algeria showed that the steps to close the prison may be criticized by liberals on humanitarian grounds as well as by conservatives for national security reasons. Lawyers for the two former detainees, who are now said to be held by the Algerian government as part of a 12-day evaluation period, denounced the move. “I think that these guys are numbers on a spreadsheet for the State Department,” said Wells Dixon, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a human rights firm that represents one of the men, Djamel Ameziane. “I think the State Department doesn’t care if it ruins their lives.” Ian Moss, a spokesman at the State Department for Guantánamo transfer issues, defended the decision to repatriate the two men against their will. He said the United States had previously repatriated 14 other Algerians and was “satisfied that the Algerian government would continue to abide by lawful procedures and uphold its obligations under domestic and international law in managing the return of former Guantánamo detainees.” “We understand that from time to time we will receive criticism,” Mr. Moss said, “but we are absolutely committed to moving forward with closing Guantánamo, and doing so in a responsible manner, consistent with the law, our national security interests and our longstanding humane treatment policies.” Mr. Ameziane was arrested in Pakistan in late 2001, and the other Algerian, Belkacem Bensayah, was arrested in Bosnia in 2001. Both were taken to Guantánamo in early 2002. The two men were approved for transfer, if security conditions could be met, by a 2009 Obama administration task force. “Mr. Bensayah was adamant that he would rather stay at Guantánamo than return to Algeria,” said Mark Fleming, a lawyer for Mr. Bensayah, “not only because he wanted to be reunited with his family in Bosnia after 12 years apart, which now seems increasingly difficult — if not impossible — but he also feared he would be a target for actual extremists in Algeria.” Mr. Fleming said Mr. Bensayah’s legal team had unsuccessfully sought to persuade Bosnia, which had revoked his citizenship, to take in his client because his wife and daughters live there. He said the United States should have tried harder to get another European country to take him. In a news release, the Center for Constitutional Rights called Mr. Ameziane’s involuntary transfer “as unnecessary as it is bitterly cruel,” and said he should have been sent instead to Canada — he once lived in Montreal — or to Luxembourg, which the center contended offered in 2010 to take him in. Luxembourg’s interest has been murky. Jennifer Oscroft, a British lawyer who assisted in efforts to resettle Mr. Ameziane, said in an interview that it had been a “serious opportunity” because a top Luxembourg official expressed sympathy for Mr. Ameziane and that the country sent a delegation to Guantánamo in mid-2010 to interview him. She said she was told the United States did not allow the delegation’s members to talk with Mr. Ameziane for reasons that remained unclear; instead they met with a detainee from Yemen. But a government official with knowledge of the matter, while confirming that a Luxembourg delegation had visited Guantánamo, said that its members did not visit with the purpose of interviewing Mr. Ameziane, but rather another detainee. (Luxembourg ultimately did not resettle any detainees.) Mr. Moss declined to discuss the details of diplomatic negotiations, but said that resettling Mr. Ameziane in another country was not a “viable” option. |