Five lower-level Yemen detainees who have been held at Guantanamo Bay were transferred to the United Arab Emirates, the Department of Defense announced Sunday. None of the lads had been charged with a criminal offense still had been detained as enemy combatants.
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Earlier this year, the United States transferred four Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Oman and a fifth to Estonia. UAE has previously only accepted one former Guantanamo detainee, its own citizen, in 2008.
In an interview this week with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, Obama said he hopes “that by the end of this year we are seeing close to under 100 [Guantanamo] prisoners remaining and detainees remaining”.
In May, President Barack Obama met at Camp David with leaders or representatives of the six Middle Eastern countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council, including a representative from the United Arab Emirates. The main topic of discussion was the nuclear agreement with Iran, but officials familiar with the deliberations said Obama had also pressed them to consider resettling groups of detainees. Each of the five was captured near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in late 2001, after the battle of Tora Bora, when many low-level fighters fled to the mountains, according to leaked military dossiers.
“As directed by the president’s January 22, 2009, executive order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of these cases”, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement.
The released men, who arrived in the UAE on Saturday, were identified as Ali Ahmad Muhammad al-Razihi, Khalid Abd-al-Jabbar Muhammad Uthman al-Qadasi, Adil Said al-Hajj Ubayd al-Busays, Sulayman Awad Bin Uqayl al-Nahdi, and Fahmi Salem Said al-Asani.
Even so, the Defense Department is expected to unveil a long-awaited plan outlining how it would close the military prison – a move estimated to cost at least $400 million (373 million euros) annually – despite continued opposition from a Republican-dominated Congress.
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On Sunday, the Pentagon announced five Yemeni detainees had been transferred to the United Arab Emirates.
