• 21:40
  • Thursday ,25 March 2010
العربية

Guantanamo men arrive in Europe

By-BBC

International News

00:03

Thursday ,25 March 2010

Guantanamo men arrive in Europe
Three ex-inmates of the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay have been transferred to the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia and two to Switzerland.
 
US officials gave no details of the three men sent to Georgia but a Georgian minister said they were from the Middle East.
 
They will be allowed to live freely but may not leave Georgia under the terms of their transfer.
 
The two men who arrived in Switzerland are both Chinese Uighurs.
 
More than 180 inmates remain in America's controversial prison for foreign terrorism suspects in Cuba.
 
The latest three transfers were carried out under an arrangement between the two countries to make sure it took place under appropriate security measures, the US justice department said.
 
Consultations about the three will continue, it added. Details of their nationality and history were withheld by US officials for security and privacy reasons.
 
The Obama administration, which aims to shut down Guantanamo prison, has struggled to relocate detainees deemed to no longer pose a threat to US interests.
 
Few of its foreign allies have been willing to accept them and there is strong opposition within America to having them on US soil.
 
'Helping out'
 
Georgian interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili confirmed the arrival of the detainees on Tuesday, saying they were from "Middle Eastern countries".
 
"They will be free, they will live like normal citizens and they will have permanent contacts with their families," he was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
 
Georgian National Security Council chief Eka Tkeshelashvili said Tbilisi had agreed to accept the inmates as part of its efforts to build stronger ties with Washington.
 
"From the beginning when there was a call for co-operation we started negotiations because we wanted to help out," she told AFP.
 
"This is in the general scope of our behaviour as a strategic partner. We have had the same attitude in connection with our contribution to the mission in Afghanistan."
 
Georgia is a strong US ally which has troops serving alongside Nato-led forces in Afghanistan. It has been seeking to muster foreign support since its defeat in a brief war with Russia in the summer of 2008 over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
 
"We are grateful to the government of Georgia for joining their efforts to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay," US state department spokesman Philip Crowley said in Washington.
 
It is believed to be the first time Georgia has taken in Guantanamo inmates.
 
According to the Associated Press news agency, at least 80 of the Guantanamo prisoners are expected to be tried in the US or to remain in custody without charge, while more than 100 have been approved for transfer to foreign countries.