Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – – Five Guantanamo Bay detainees have been released for transfer after being held for over a decade for alleged terrorist activity and suspected al-Qaida connections.
As of Thursday, Husayn Salim Muhammad Al-Mutari Yafai, Salah Mohammed Salih Al-Dhabi, Abdel Ghaib Ahmad Hakim and Abdul Khaled Al-Bandana of Yemin and Hashim Bin Ali Bin Amor Sliti of Tunisia had been moved out of the detention facility. Slovakia has agreed to accept two of them, while Georgia is taking three.
“They’re determined to no longer be a significant threat to the United States,” said U. S. Army Lt. Col. Myles B. Caggins III, Pentagon spokesman for detainee policy.
Through a review process, detainees are deemed eligible for transfer. The Departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are all part of the inter-agency group that decides if a detainee is eligible.
When found eligible, the detainees in question are interviewed by potential host countries. Once a country has accepted one, the war prisoner is flown to the arranged country and is either started on a re-integration plan, or left to make arrangements for himself. The process varies by host country.
“Before the decision is made to transfer, we establish a threat mitigation plan with our foreign partners to monitor any security concerns,” Caggins said.
After a certain length of time, the transfers are allowed to either stay in the host country or travel elsewhere.
Caggins was unable to specify if there is a U. S. monitoring process once the detainee arrives in the host country.
During the Obama administration, 95 detainees have been transferred with 53 sent to countries other than their own.
It is up to the host country whether to publicize the new arrival or not.
There are still 143 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Seventy- four of them have been deemed eligible for transfer.
The Defense Department is “committed to supporting the president’s goal of closing Guantanamo Bay,” said Caggins. He continued, “we are taking all practical steps to accomplish that objective through transfers and prosecutions.”
Published in conjunction with 