Pentagon releases two more Guantanamo detainees
The Pentagon announced Thursday that an additional two detainees were transferred out of the Guantanamo Bay prison facility for countries in the Balkans, leaving just 91 prisoners remaining.
Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed Al Sawah was transferred from Guantanamo to the government of Bosnia. Abd al-Aziz Abduh Abdallah Ali Al-Suwaydi was transferred to the government of Montenegro. Both detainees were approved for transfer after the government reviewed each case and determined that the men did not pose an ongoing threat to national security.
Al Sawah's transfer was approved by the Periodic Review Board, while Al-Suwaydi's was approved by the Guantanamo Review Task Force.
In separate statements, the U.S. government thanked both Bosnia and Montenegro.
According to the New York Times, al Sawah is a 58-year-old citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Egypt who has been held at Guantanamo for 13 years and eight months. He became injured by a cluster bomb while fighting with a group of Arab al Qaeda fighters in 2001, and was turned over to the Northern Alliance by an Afghan national and then to U.S. forces.
He was initially recommended for prosecution by the Guantanamo Review Task Force, but later recommended for transfer by the Periodic Review Board. He is on a list of detainees who are considered high risk because of their health. He is morbidly obese with elevated cholesterol, diabetes, nonalcoholic liver disease and chronic low back pain.
Suwaydi, according to the Times, is a 41-year-old Yemeni citizen who has been held a the prison for 13 years and eight months. He is an al Qaeda member who was identified as an explosives trainer. After fleeing Afghanistan, he was captured at a safe house where he forged travel documents to try to return to Yemen.
Both arrived at Guantanamo in May 2002.
According to the Miami Herald, the U.S. had approved another Yemeni prisoner named Mohammad Bwazir for release, but he declined to leave because he feared going to a country where he had no family.
In news unrelated to the transfers, the Justice Department filed a notice that is will appeal a judge's order to release edited videos of a Guantanamo detainee being force-fed as well as being forcibly extracted from his cell. The detainee in the videos, Abu Wa'el Dhiab, was released from Guantanamo in December 2014, but the videos have been at the center of a contentious legal debate between the Obama administration and several media organizations.
The government argues that the videos could be used for anti-U.S. propaganda, but several media organizations, including CBS News, have been pushing for the recordings to be released. The videos were scheduled to be released to the public Friday. The government's notice of appeal puts the release on hold until a final decision is reached through the courts.
President Obama intends to present a plan to Congress to shutter the prison in order to fulfill a long-held campaign promise, although opposition runs deep in Congress. Some of his aides and former advisers are urging him to use his executive authority to transfer prisoners to the U.S. for detention or trial.
Mr. Obama has argued that it does not make sense to spend millions a year to maintain the prison, and he also says it fuels the propaganda of terror groups.