The U.S. has transferred 12 Yemenis and three Afghans from the Cuba facility-Guantanamo prison-to the United Arab Emirates.
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HAIDERKHAIL, Afghanistan (AP) – An Afghan family in the eastern province of Khost says they’re excited their son is among 15 prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay detention center and transferred to the United Arab Emirates this week.
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks in NY, about 780 inmates have been kept at Guantanamo.
Gulf News reported that once transferred overseas, inmates are usually freed and subject to supervision and participation in rehabilitation programs.
Current legal obstacles prevent Obama from moving any detainees to US soil and are meant to make transfers overseas more hard, but do not stop them altogether, nor do they prohibit an inter-agency group from continuing to review cases and send others to join them.
Fifteen more Guantanamo Bay detainees were transferred today to the UAE.
Returning Guantanamo prisoners back to Yemen would be hard amid a two-year civil war raging in the Arab world’s most impoverished country.
While it appears increasingly unlikely that President Barack Obama will succeed in closing the prison before he leaves office in January, the transfer brought him significantly closer to another goal: getting out every detainee who has been approved for transfer.
Six of the 15 – al-Busi, Sulayman, Kazaz, al-Muhajari, al-Adahi, and al-Mudafari – were unanimously recommended for release by the inter-agency Guantanamo Review Task Force, the Pentagon said.
But one major hurdle that has slowed reductions is that the overwhelming majority of the detainees cleared for release are from Yemen. “We are very pleased with the move to bring the prisoners to the UAE and helping the process of the transfer back to their home country”.
The release was the largest single transfer of Guantanamo bay prisoners since Obama took office.
In a speech Monday on defeating Daesh, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump vowed to keep open the controversial prison.
A Pentagon profile from September 2015 said he expressed dislike of the USA, which they identified as “an emotion that probably is motivated more by frustration over his continuing detention than by a commitment to global jihad”.
To date, just 10 of the detainees face criminal trial, including the “9/11 Five” – led by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – who are accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks.
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The Guantanamo Bay prison is located on an American naval base in south-eastern Cuba. Some of them have been at Guantanamo since 2002, without trial, in contradiction of the due process of American law.
