A total of 780 guys are held without charge or criminal trial at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, the vast bulk.
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A small number of high-value prisoners, such as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other alleged September 11 terrorist attack plotters, would presumably remain at Guantanamo Bay until they are tried in military tribunals there.
“His administration has stepped up efforts to find countries to take 48 detainees on a transfer list and moved to speed up the work of a parole-like board that might approve the release of others who are now recommended for indefinite detention”.
The most recent batch of released detainees are Fahed Abdullah Ahmad Ghazi, Samir Naji al-Hasan Muqbil, Adham Mohamed Ali Awad, Mukhtar Yahya Naji al-Warafi, Abu Bakr Ibn Muhammad al-Ahdal, Muhammad Salih Husayn al-Shaykh, Muhammad Said Salim Bin Salman, Said Muhammad Salih Hatim, Umar Said Salim al-Dini, and Fahmi Abdallah Ahmad Ubadi al-Tulaqi.
Their transfer to the Gulf Arab state marked the largest group of prisoners shipped out of the detention center at the USA naval base in Cuba since Obama began his presidency in 2009 pledging to quickly shutter a prison that has drawn global condemnation. The other 59 have been classified as ineligible for release or transfer.
“Sustained diplomatic engagement led us to this important milestone”, Wolosky said.
There are now 93 detainees at the Guantanamo facility. At least three former Gitmo detainees have assumed leadership roles with al Qaeda after the Obama administration freed them.
An Omani officials told the state news agency that the detainees had arrived and would remain there for humanitarian reasons until conditions in Yemen, which is crippled by civil war, allow them to return home.
Polling from 2014 shows most Americans don’t want the detention center to close. In December 2013, the now-retired Marine major general who helped establish the prison said Guantanamo should have never been opened, and called on the government to close the prison.
President Obama on Tuesday used his State of the Union address to reiterate his argument for closing the prison, which he says wastes taxpayer money and inflames anti-American sentiments. Secretary Carter has said he has proposed sending detainees considered too unsafe to release “to an appropriate, secure location in the United States”.
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Carter said that the inmates were transferred after “deliberate and careful review”.
