Ellen Knickmeyer
Mon, January 6, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon said Monday it had transferred 11 Yemeni men to Oman this week after holding them for more than two decades without charge at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The transfer was the latest and biggest push by the Biden administration in its final weeks to clear Guantanamo of the last remaining detainees there who were never charged with a crime.
The latest release brings the total number of men detained at Guantanamo to 15. That's the fewest since 2002, when the George W. Bush administration turned Guantanamo into a detention site for the mostly Muslim men taken into custody around the world in what the U.S. called its “war on terror." The U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and military and covert operations elsewhere followed the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks.
The men in the latest transfer included Shaqawi al Hajj, who had undergone repeated hunger strikes and hospitalizations at Guantanamo to protest his 21 years in prison, preceded by two years of detention and torture in CIA custody, according to the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
Rights groups and some lawmakers have pushed successive U.S. administrations to close Guantanamo or, failing that, release all those detainees never charged with a crime. Guantanamo held about 800 detainees at its peak.
The Biden administration and administrations before it said they were working on lining up suitable countries willing to take those never-charged detainees. Many of those stuck at Guantanamo were from Yemen, a country split by war and dominated by the Iran-allied Houthi militant group.
The transfer announced Monday leaves six never-charged men still being held at Guantanamo, two convicted and sentenced inmates, and seven others charged with the 2001 attacks, the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, and 2002 bombings in Bali.
Ellen Knickmeyer, The Associated Press
US transfers 11 prisoners out of Guantánamo Bay
Brad Dress
Mon, January 6, 2025
US transfers 11 prisoners out of Guantánamo Bay
The U.S. on Monday transferred 11 prisoners out of Guantánamo Bay, the latest batch of inmates to leave the infamous facility in Cuba that once held around 780 detainees.
The 11 prisoners were Yemeni nationals, according to the Defense Department, and their transfer to the country of Oman brings the detainee population at the site down to just 15 people.
President Biden has continued the mission of the Obama administration to transfer prisoners out and wind down operations at the site that has become infamous for accusations of torture and abuse as the U.S. carried out the war on terrorism.
The Pentagon also announced a detainee transfer to Tunisia in December, but it’s unclear if Biden intends to bring down the population even further before he leaves office.
Several inmates are likely to remain for now, including the alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, and four of his conspirators. Including KSM, four of the five are set to stand trial beginning this week.
The U.S. announced plea deals for KSM and three conspirators last year, but Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked them. Last week, a military appeals court ruled that Austin did not have the authority to revoke the plea deals, which included life sentences for KSM and the three conspirators.
The transfers this week were authorized for one detainee, Tawfiq Nasir Awad Al-Bihani, by an executive order signed by then-President Obama in 2009. The others were authorized by a review board.
“Although different processes, each of the 10 Yemeni detainees underwent a thorough, interagency review by career professionals who unanimously determined all detainees as transfer eligible consistent with the national security interests of the United States,” the Pentagon said in a release.
One of the detainees transferred was Sharqawi Al Hajj, 51, who spent 21 years at Guantánamo Bay despite never being charged with a crime and who was hospitalized after undergoing a hunger strike in 2017.
Hajj was represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights. Pardiss Kebriaei, a senior staff attorney at the legal foundation, said his thoughts were with Hajj as he “transitions to the free world after almost 23 years in captivity.”
“His release is hopeful for him and for us,” Kebriaei said in a statement. “We are grateful to Oman and to the individuals in the administration who made this transfer happen, and to the many people over the years whose work and advocacy paved the way for this moment.”
The legal foundation said Hajj was one of 119 victims named in a Senate Intelligence report on the CIA’s alleged abuses, and that he spent more than two years at the CIA’s sites before transferring to Guantánamo Bay in 2004.
Of the 15 men still at the Cuba site, six have never been charged, three of whom are awaiting release while the other three waiting for clearance, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
11 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay transferred to Oman
Haley Britzky, CNN
Mon, January 6, 2025
This Dec. 10, 2016 photo shows the exterior of Camp 6 at the detention center at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval base, in Cuba. (AP Photo/Ben Fox)
Eleven Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been transferred to Oman, marking yet another detainee transfer from the military prison in the final days of the Biden administration.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin notified Congress in September 2023 of his intent to transfer the detainees to Oman, the Pentagon said in a news release Monday.
The detainees who were transferred include: Uthman Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Uthman, Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi, Khalid Ahmed Qassim, Suhayl Abdul Anam al Sharabi, Hani Saleh Rashid Abdullah, Tawfiq Nasir Awad Al-Bihani, Omar Mohammed Ali al-Rammah, Sanad Ali Yislam Al Kazimi, Hassan Muhammad Ali Bib Attash, Sharqawi Abdu Ali Al Hajj, and Abd Al-Salam Al-Hilah.
President Joe Biden made it a goal early in his tenure to close Guantanamo Bay. With two weeks left in his term, 15 detainees remain at the detention facility with three eligible for transfer, according to the news release from the Department of Defense. The facility held about 40 detainees at the start of the Biden administration.
At least one of the Yemeni men transferred — Qassim — was never charged with a crime and has been in custody at Guantanamo Bay for more than 20 years, according to Reprieve, a human rights and legal non-profit organization. During his detention, he was “subjected to severe torture and mistreatment, initially at Bagram airbase, then Kandahar and Guantánamo, including beatings, sleep deprivation, extreme isolation, exposure to freezing temperatures, forced standing and stress positions,” Reprieve said in a release regarding his transfer.
“We are grateful to the Biden Administration for effecting this transfer and are overjoyed that Khalid is a free man, but must never forget the appalling injustice he has been subjected to,” a member of Qassim’s legal team, Tom Wilner, said in a statement.
CNN has reached out to the Department of Defense for comment.
In recent weeks, the US has also transferred four other Guantanamo Bay detainees to Kenya, Malaysia, and Tunisia.
And last month, a military appeals court put back on track plea deals for three alleged co-conspirators of the 9/11 attacks, including suspected mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, after Austin attempted to step in and reject the deals.
For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
No comments:
Post a Comment