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US sends 11 Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo to Oman

Translations| 6 January, 2025 - 11:43 PM

Yemen Youth Net - Special Translation

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The US military has sent 11 Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to Oman to start their lives anew, the Pentagon announced Monday, leaving just 15 men in the prison in a bold move at the end of the Biden administration that has left the prison’s prison population lower than at any time in its more than 20-year history.

None of the released men were charged with crimes during their two decades of detention, according to a report by The New York Times - translated by Yemen Youth Net. Now, all but six of the remaining prisoners have been charged or convicted of war crimes.

There were 40 detainees when President Biden took office and revived the Obama administration’s efforts to close the prison, and the transfer process has been underway for about three years. But the initial plan to carry out the transfer in October 2023 failed due to congressional opposition, according to the American newspaper.

11 Yemenis, including Abdul Salam Al-Hillah

The Pentagon carried out the covert operation in the early hours of Monday morning, days before Guantanamo's most notorious prisoner, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was scheduled to plead guilty to planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for a life sentence rather than face a death penalty trial.

Among the 11 prisoners released were Moath al-Alawi, a longtime hunger striker who gained interest in the art world for building model boats from objects found at Guantanamo Bay, Abd al-Salam al-Hillah, whose testimony defense lawyers have sought in the USS Cole case, and Hassan bin Attash, the younger brother of a 9/11 suspect.

“It’s not just that they’re culturally compatible,” Mr Clarke said. “It’s that they’ve been given reasonably decent freedom, and they’re properly integrated into society in a successful way. That’s what makes resettlement successful.”

The men sent to Oman were captured by US allies or taken into US custody between 2001 and 2003. Mr Clarke said they were eager to return to a world of mobile phones and internet access.

“They want to live their lives,” said Clarke, who represents Tawfiq al-Baihani and Mr. Bin Attash. “They want to get married, have children, get a job and live a normal life.”

In October 2023, a military cargo plane and security team were already at Guantanamo Bay to transport the 11th detainee to Oman when congressional objections prompted the Biden administration to cancel the mission, which finally happened this week.

By that time, the prisoners who left this week had already undergone exit interviews with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the guards had taken away their personal belongings that would travel with them.

The State Department official said Tina S. Kaidanow, the Biden administration’s envoy for Guantanamo, kept the deal viable through negotiations, travel and meetings within the U.S. government and with the receiving country over the next year. Ms. Kaidanow died in October.

The infamous Guantanamo prison

Three other Guantanamo prisoners are eligible for transfer, including a stateless Rohingya, a Libyan and a Somali.

Four of them spent between 120 and 590 days in the CIA's secret prison program abroad before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2004 as "enemy combatants."

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