US intends to repatriate 2 Guantanamo prisoners: White House
Iran Press TV
Sat Jul 27, 2013 4:37PM GMT
The administration of US President Barack Obama has announced it plans to transfer two long-held detainees at the notorious Guantanamo detention facility back home to Algeria.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Friday that the Pentagon has notified Congress that it was starting to repatriate two Guantanamo prisoners.
"We are taking this step in consultation with Congress, and in a responsible manner that protects our national security," Carney said in a statement on Friday.
Shuttering Guantanamo was a central theme of Obama's presidential campaign in 2008 as he acknowledged that the prison was a symbol of the US government's violation of human rights.
Obama also reiterated his 2008 presidential campaign pledge for closing Guantanamo during a White House news conference on April 30.
Despite Obama's repeated pledge to close Guantanamo, 166 men remain in the infamous prison, most of them without any charge for over a decade.
The Obama White House declined to send a witness to a Senate hearing on shutting down the prison complex on Wednesday while it had received an invitation.
Earlier this year, US officials admitted that an overwhelming majoring of Guantanamo prisoners will never be charged and that less than 1 in 8 inmates might ever see the inside of a courtroom.
In 2010, Obama's Guantanamo Review Task Force said that only 36 of the prisoners at Guantanamo would eventually be prosecuted as they lacked any evidence to charge the rest of prisoners.
However, Army Brigadier General Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals, has called that number "ambitious," saying at most 20 prisoners could face tribunals.
A majority of the prisoners at Guantanamo have been on hunger strike for almost six months protesting their indefinite detention.
And now, during the holy month of Ramadan, the hunger striking prisoners observe fasting as prison authorities continue to forcibly feed them through nasal tubes, which human rights groups say amounts to torture.
ISH/HJ
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