(New York) – After months of delay, the United States completed the transfers of six detainees from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility to Uruguay on December 7, 2014. The transfers lower the number of prisoners being held at Guantanamo from 142 to 136.
“The transfer of six detainees to Uruguay is an important step toward ending the longstanding injustice of holding people indefinitely without charge at Guantanamo,” said Laura Pitter, senior national security counsel at Human Rights Watch. “Responsibility for illegal detention at Guantanamo lies with the US, but other countries can help end this abuse by following Uruguay’s example and accepting detainees.”
Legislative bars on transferring detainees to US soil mean that other countries’ cooperation in accepting detainees will accelerate efforts aimed at ending indefinite detention at Guantanamo, Human Rights Watch said.
Those transferred were: Ahmed Adnan Ahjam, Ali Husein Shaaban, Abd al Hadi Omar Mahmoud Faraj, and Abu Wa’el Dhiab, all Syrians; Mohammed Abdullah Tahamuttan, a Palestinian; and Abdul Bin Mohammed Bin Abess Ourgy, from Tunisia. They had all been cleared for release by US authorities.
