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Five Guantanamo prisoners flown to Kazakhstan for resettlement Five Guantanamo prisoners flown to Kazakhstan for resettlement
(about 9 hours later)
Three Yemenis and two Tunisians held for more than a decade at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay have been flown to Kazakhstan for resettlement, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. Two Tunisian and three Yemeni detainees have been transferred from the US-run prison at Guantánamo Bay to Kazakhstan, the Pentagon said.
The transfer of the five men followed a recent pledge by President Barack Obama for a renewed push to shut the controversial detention centre where most prisoners have been held without being charged or tried. The former Guantánamo inmates, who were flown on a US military aircraft, arrived in Kazakhstan on Tuesday. Their transfer is part of President Barack Obama’s push to close the controversial military prison, which was set up to detain terror suspects after the September 11 2001 attacks.
The US government has moved 28 prisoners out of Guantanamo this year – the largest number since 2009 – and a senior official said the pace would continue with further transfers expected in coming weeks. “We are determined to responsibly reduce the detainee population and you can expect additional transfers over the coming weeks,” an administration official told Agence France-Presse.
Kazakhstan’s acceptance of the five detainees followed extensive negotiations with the Obama administration, the official said. The Pentagon said in a statement that the five men were unanimously approved for transfer after a thorough review by a taskforce of several US government agencies.
Though the oil-rich central Asian state is an ally of Russia, it has cultivated areas of economic and diplomatic cooperation with the west. The transfer of the five detainees leaves 127 inmates still at the prison, located at a US naval base in south-east Cuba.
The men sent to Kazakhstan, a majority-Muslim country, were identified as “low-level” detainees who were cleared long ago for transfer. With their removal from Guantanamo just before the new year, the detainee population has been whittled down to 127 from more than 700 in the wake of the war in Afghanistan. The number of detainees transferred out of Guantánamo in 2014 now stands at 28.
More than half of the remaining Guantanamo detainees are from Yemen, and though most have been approved for transfer, Washington is unable to send them home because of the country’s chaotic security situation. Details of what Kazakhstan had agreed to and what security steps the government there might take remained unclear.
All five men were originally detained on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or allied militant groups. The five inmates, who have never been tried in court and who were cleared for transfer by authorities in 2010 or even earlier, have spent more than 11 years at the Guantánamo prison, which human rights groups have condemned as a “legal black hole”.
The Pentagon identified the Yemenis as Asim Thabit Abdullah Al-Khalaqi, Muhammad Ali Husayn Khanayna and Sabri Muhammad Ibrahim Al Qurashi. The Tunisians were named as Adel Al-Hakeemy and Abdullah Bin Ali Al-Lufti. The facility is approaching its 13th anniversary, as the first detainees arrived on 11 January 2002.
Other countries that have accepted Guantanamo detainees for resettlement this year include Uruguay, Georgia and Slovakia. The largest number - four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian - were sent to Uruguay earlier this month. Of the 127 inmates still held there, 59 are cleared to be transferred to their home countries or third countries.
The prison was opened by Obama’s predecessor, George Bush, after the 9/11 attacks on the United States to house militant suspects rounded up overseas. With the release of the two Tunisian detainees, there is only one Tunisian national still held at the prison. At one point, there were 12 Tunisian inmates.
“I’m going to be doing everything I can to close it,” Obama told CNN in an interview broadcast on 21 December. Yemeni detainees are the largest group at Guantánamo, with 80 inmates identified as Yemeni nationals, of which 50 are considered ready to be transferred. But US authorities have concerns over security given the volatile situation in Yemen.
The Pentagon identified the Tunisian nationals transferred on Tuesday as Adel Al-Hakeemy and Abdullah Bin Ali Al-Lufti, also known as Lofti Bin Ali.
Authorities had approved the repatriation of Ali in 2006, but a US federal judge in 2007 blocked his transfer, saying he would likely face torture and “irreparable harm” at the hands of Tunisian authorities.
Ali, 49, has a pacemaker, suffers heart rhythm problems and takes blood thinning medication. He has strongly denied having any links to al-Qaida and insisted he had travelled to Pakistan to buy medicine when he was arrested by authorities there after the 9/11 attacks.
His compatriot, Hakeemy, also known as Hkiml, 49, had been described by US authorities as a “veteran terrorist” who had allegedly taken part in fighting in Bosnia and was accused of links with an Algerian Islamist group.
But he has maintained he was working as a cook in Italy and had gone to Pakistan to find a wife. He was arrested by Pakistani authorities near the Afghan border and held at Guantánamo for more than 12 years.
Both he and his fellow Tunisian detainee had lived in Italy as immigrants.
The three Yemenis who were transferred were identified as Asim Thabit Abdullah Al-Khalaqi, Muhammad Ali Husayn Khanayna and Sabri Muhammad Ibrahim Al Qurashi.
Khalaqi, 46, born in Saudi Arabia, had been suspected of serving in Osama bin Laden’s Arab brigade.
Arrested in December 2001 in the company of a senior al-Qaida figure, he has been behind bars at Guantánamo since 17 January 2002, among the first inmates to be sent to the prison at Guantánamo Bay.
The second Yemeni to be transferred out is Muhammad Ali Husayn Khanayna, 46, also known as Muhammed Ali Hussein Khnenah, who has been held at the prison since June 2002.
He was arrested at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in December 2001. US authorities alleged he was present at Bin Laden’s hideout in the Tora Bora mountains and that he had stayed at guesthouses known to serve al-Qaida extremists.
The third Yemeni detainee transferred was Sabri Muhammad Ibrahim Al Qurashi, 44, who had been suspected of membership in al-Qaida and undergoing instruction at one of the group’s training camps. He was arrested by Pakistani authorities at a known al-Qaida safe house in February 2002 and was sent to Guantánamo in May of that year.
The transfers came just days after Obama’s envoy overseeing the release of Guantánamo inmates, Cliff Sloan, resigned from his post. Sloan had reportedly become frustrated at the slow pace of transfers, which have to be approved by the Pentagon.
Outgoing Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel, who resigned in November, had reportedly come under pressure from the White House to move more swiftly to approve proposed transfers of detainees.