U.S. sends nine Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia
The United States on Saturday transferred nine Yemeni men to Saudi Arabia from the U.S. advancing bastille at Guantanamo, including an bedfellow who had been on a ache bang back 2007, beneath a long-sought adept accord amid Washington and Riyadh, U.S. admiral said.The transfer, which took abode just canicule afore President Barack Obama's appointment to Saudi Arabia for a acme of Gulf Arab allies, apparent the latest footfall in his final advance to abutting the arguable apprehension centermost at the U.S. argosy abject in Cuba afore he leaves appointment in January 2017.
 |
| U.S. sends nine Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia |
The Saudis agreed, afterwards diffuse negotiations that at one point complex Obama and Saudi King Salman, to yield the nine Yemenis for resettlement and put them through a government-run rehabilitation affairs that seeks to adjust militants into society, the admiral said.
The accumulation appear by the Pentagon was the better alien out of the Guantanamo Bay bastille back Obama formed out his plan in February aimed at shutting the facility. But he faces annealed activity from abounding Republican assembly as able-bodied as some adolescent Democrats.
There are now 80 prisoners at Guantanamo, a lot of captivated after allegation or balloon for added than a decade, cartoon all-embracing condemnation.
The a lot of arresting of the transfers was Tariq Ba Odah, a 37-year-old Yemeni whom the advancing had been force-feeding circadian back he went on a ache bang in 2007. His acknowledged aggregation said he was down to 74 pounds, accident about bisected of his physique weight.
Ba Odah's lawyer, Omar Farah, said the U.S. government had "played Russian roulette" with his client's activity and that his alteration "ends one of the a lot of alarming capacity in Guantanamo's abject history."
His case was a antecedent of acknowledged altercation amid the U.S. Department of Justice and his lawyers, who had abominably approved his absolution on altruistic and medical grounds, and aswell created capacity aural the Obama administration.
TRANSFERS PRECEDE OBAMA'S VISIT
The transfers took abode as Obama able to appointment Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and Thursday for a acme with the Gulf Cooperation Council at a time if U.S.-Saudi relations accept been artificial by the nuclear accord with Iran, their Shi'ite bounded rival, and what Riyadh sees as a anemic U.S. acknowledgment to Syria's civilian war.
The Saudis accept aswell threatened to advertise of hundreds of billions of dollars' account of American assets should the U.S. Congress canyon a bill that could authority the commonwealth amenable for a role in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the New York Times reported.
A U.S. official said the alteration - the aftereffect of years of negotiations, including an Oval Appointment address by Obama to the visiting Saudi autocrat in September and visits to the commonwealth by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry - was not orchestrated for Obama's cruise and the timing was a coincidence.
Republicans accept bidding activity to such transfers, delivery affair that added appear Guantanamo prisoners will acknowledgment to alive activities.
But the alteration was advised a advance back Riyadh had continued resisted demography any non-Saudi nationals from the prison.
All nine men accept ancestors ties in Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen. The Obama administering has disqualified out sending Yemenis to their citizenry because it is engulfed in civilian war and has an alive al Qaeda branch.
"The United States is beholden to the government of the commonwealth of Saudi Arabia for its altruistic gesture," the Pentagon said in a statement.
Guantanamo prisoners were angled up across if the United States became affected in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan afterward the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. The facility, opened by Obama's antecedent George W. Bush, came to betoken advancing apprehension practices that opened the United States to accusations of torture.
Obama's plan for shuttering the ability calls for bringing the several dozen actual prisoners to maximum-security prisons in the United States. U.S. law confined such transfers to the acreage but Obama has not disqualified out application controlling activity to do so.
Ba Odah, who was captured by the Pakistani army forth the Afghan bound and was accused of accepting weapons training in adjustment to action with the Taliban, had been force-fed by nasal tube back he chock-full demography solid aliment in beef at his detention. He was austere for alteration in 2009.
Pentagon admiral had said he was accepting able care. But his case was seen, until a contempo uptick in transfers, as affirmation of the Pentagon afraid Obama's efforts to abutting the apprehension center.
The added prisoners complex in the alteration were articular as: Umar Abdullah Al-Hikimi, Abdul Rahman Mohammed Saleh Nasir, Ali Yahya Mahdi Al-Raimi, Muhammed Abdullah Muhammed Al-Hamiri, Ahmed Yaslam Said Kuman, Abd al Rahman Al-Qyati, Mansour Muhammed Ali Al-Qatta, and Mashur Abdullah Muqbil Ahmed Al-Sabri.
They were a part of a accumulation of lower-level inmates, now calculation 26 and mostly Yemenis, who accept been austere for alteration by a U.S. government inter-agency assignment force. U.S. admiral accept said they apprehend to move out all associates of that accumulation by this summer.
(Additional advertisement by David Rohde; alteration by Grant McCool, G Crosse)
0 comments:
Post a Comment
If You have Any Doubts, Let Me Know