Riyadh/Washington: The Pentagon sent four Yemeni detainees from the Guantanamo Bay military prison to Saudi Arabia yesterday, launching President Barack Obama’s final flurry of prisoner transfers despite Donald Trump’s demand for a freeze.
It was the first phase of Obama’s plan to move as many as 19 prisoners to four countries —Oman, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and possibly Italy — to shrink Guantanamo’s inmate population as much as possible before the Republican president-elect is sworn in on January 20.
There were emotional reunions with families at the royal airport in the capital Riyadh, with one man bending down to kiss his sobbing mother’s feet as she cried “God is great.” Fifty-five prisoners now remain at Guantanamo. About 40 will still be left by the time Obama leaves office, meaning that he will be unable to fulfill his longstanding pledge to close the controversial facility at the US naval base in Cuba.
Trump has vowed to keep it open and “load it up with some bad dudes.”
The four Yemenis, all captured as part of the Afghanistan conflict and held without trial for up to 15 years, were on a US list recommended for transfer. They were sent to Saudi Arabia because the Obama administration has ruled out returning Yemenis to their homeland, which is engulfed in civil war and has an active Al Qaeda branch.
The men were identified as Mohammed Rajab Sadiq Abu Ghanem, Salem Ahmed Hadi bin Kanad, Abdullah Yehya Yousef Al-Shibli and Mohammed Bawazir.
Bawazir was among prisoners who protested with a lengthy hunger strike. He was cleared for transfer by an inter-agency review in 2010 and was about to be sent to the Balkans last January but refused because he wanted to go to a country where he had family, a US official said. Ghanem and Kanad were deemed too risky to release in 2010 but their cases were re-examined and both were declared eligible for transfer last year. Shibli was approved for transfer in 2010.
The Obama administration notified Congress last month of its intention to make up to 19 additional transfers, Reuters has reported.
