Two Guantánamo Detainees Are Involuntarily Repatriated to Algeria
By CHARLIE SAVAGE, NYT
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon announced Thursday that it had repatriated two longtime Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detainees to Algeria, where, fearing persecution, neither man wanted to be sent.
The involuntary repatriations came a day after the Pentagon said that a Sudanese man would soon be repatriated to Sudan after serving out the portion of his sentence required by a pretrial agreement. He pleaded guilty in 2011 before a military commission to terrorism-related offenses.
The moves have reduced Guantánamo’s inmate population to 162, and are a sign that the Obama administration has revived efforts to winnow the population following several years of stagnation after Congress imposed legal obstacles to transfers.
Last spring, amid a widespread hunger strike among the detainees, President Obama recommitted himself to closing the detention center. He appointed new officials to take charge of the effort at the State Department and Pentagon, Cliff Sloan and Paul Lewis, and two other detainees were voluntarily repatriated to Algeria in August.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon announced Thursday that it had repatriated two longtime Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detainees to Algeria, where, fearing persecution, neither man wanted to be sent.
The involuntary repatriations came a day after the Pentagon said that a Sudanese man would soon be repatriated to Sudan after serving out the portion of his sentence required by a pretrial agreement. He pleaded guilty in 2011 before a military commission to terrorism-related offenses.
The moves have reduced Guantánamo’s inmate population to 162, and are a sign that the Obama administration has revived efforts to winnow the population following several years of stagnation after Congress imposed legal obstacles to transfers.
Last spring, amid a widespread hunger strike among the detainees, President Obama recommitted himself to closing the detention center. He appointed new officials to take charge of the effort at the State Department and Pentagon, Cliff Sloan and Paul Lewis, and two other detainees were voluntarily repatriated to Algeria in August.
(More here.)
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