Majority Of Guantanamo Detainees Cleared for Transfer to Other Countries
Most of the 39 detainees at the wartime prison could receive transfers, so long as U.S. diplomats reach security agreements with countries willing to take them in.
Landwebs
The recent approval by a U.S. government review panel to release Saudi Guantanamo Bay prisoner Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi, held for nearly 20 years as a suspected bomb maker, into the custody of another country pending rehabilitation and security measures, including travel restrictions, has opened the door for most of the 39 detainees at the wartime prison to receive similar transfers, so long as U.S. diplomats reach security agreements with countries willing to take them in, reports the New York Times. The prisoner, al-Sharbi, had unspecified “physical and mental health issues,” according to the Periodic Review Board, and, as a citizen of Saudi Arabia, may be able to go home sooner than other cleared detainees whose governments are considered too unstable or too untrustworthy to make satisfactory agreements with the United States. Saudi Arabia has received about 140 Saudis and Yemenis from Guantánamo into a program created to help rehabilitate men who joined militant, jihadist movements in Afghanistan in the years before the September 11 attacks.
