THE OBAMA administration is close to deciding how many detainees currently held in Guantánamo Bay will be freed and resettled in the United States and other countries, according to attorney general Eric Holder.
Mr Holder, who is visiting London, Berlin and Prague this week to persuade European countries to accept some detainees, told the Associated Press the administration was nearing a decision about an initial group of prisoners. “We’re doing these all on a rolling basis,” he said. “I think we’re probably relatively close to making some calls.”
President Barack Obama has promised to close Guantánamo by January 2010 but he has made clear some detainees will remain in custody in the US, while others will be resettled in third countries.
Seven out of 17 Uighurs – Chinese Muslims arrested in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001 who remain in Guantánamo although the US no longer views them as dangerous – are expected to be resettled in the US.
Beijing, which views the Uighurs as militant separatists who should face trial in China, has made clear it would regard any third country’s decision to accept the detainees as an unfriendly act.
About 60 of the 240 detainees still at Guantánamo cannot be sent to their countries of origin because they could face persecution. A number of European countries, including Ireland, Portugal and Lithuania, have told Washington they are willing to consider accepting detainees.
Reuters reported yesterday that Pentagon lawyers have met the families of Sudanese detainees and former Guantánamo prisoners to explore ways to free those still in custody.
“The lawyers are defending them and they came to see the experiences of the detainees who have been released – how they have integrated into society, how well Sudan has treated them and how they do not pose any threat to America or the world,” said Mutrif Siddig, an under secretary at the Sudanese foreign ministry.
“They’re here to explore ways to release the prisoners and see how the government of Sudan can help in that regard because we have an understanding with the US, that when we receive these prisoners, we treat them in a decent manner in compliance with international standards.”
The moves to resettle Guantánamo detainees comes as congressional leaders debate how best to deal with revelations that the Bush administration authorised the CIA to torture prisoners at secret sites overseas.
Senate judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy has called for a special commission to investigate the abuses, despite Mr Obama’s reluctance to bring the perpetrators to account.
“I know some people say, let’s turn the page. Frankly, I’d like to read the page before we turn it,” Mr Leahy told CBS.
“Why not have a nonpartisan or bipartisan commission do it, like we did in 9/11, and just go back and find everything that happened?” Mr Leahy insisted he is not seeking vengeance against former Bush administration officials but to establish the truth about what happened. “We know that there were a number of people that made the decision to violate the law, a number of people who said that we don’t have to follow our constitution,” he said.
The Pentagon has announced it will release 2,000 photographs next month showing abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and possibly at Guantánamo. Republican senator John McCain said the photographs would “again authenticate that wrong things were done” but he warned that any investigation into the Bush administration’s role in authorising the abuse would be divisive. “We need to put this behind us. We need to move forward,” he said. “We need a united nation, not a divided one.”