U.S. committee reviews files of a number of the Yemeni detainees, Swartz

The deputy assistant of the U.S. Justice Secretary  Bruce Swartz said that the US administration under directives of President Obama is currently reviewing files of a number of Yemeni detainees. In a meeting gathered the Yemeni embassy’s political consultant in Washington Khaled Al-Kathiry with deputy assistant of the U.S. Justice Secretary  Bruce Swartz, the two Yemeni and U.S. officials talked over the conditions of the Yemeni detainees in the U.S. Guantanamo and Bagram military bases on Thursday, Yemen News agency Saba reported. During the meeting Yemen has renewed its request to the US administration to release all Yemeni detainees at the US-run Guantanamo and ...

 Bagram prisons and hand them over to Yemen.

Al-Kathiry and Swartz discussed the legal and health circumstances of Sheikh Mohammed al-Moayad and his companion Mohammed Zayed who have spent six years in US prisons.

The US official said that the US administration is currently preparing several procedures to transfer al-Moayad to a medical center.  “Under the directives of President Barack Obama, a US committee is currently reviewing the files of a number of the Yemeni detainees”, said Swartz.

Swartz praised the good level of the mutual cooperation between his country and Yemen in various fields.

In a related context Yemen repeatedly demanded the United States to release the Yemeni detainees in Guantanamo bay or in any other American detention center.  “Yemen is ready to try whoever is involved in any terrorist acts, if there is evidence against them,” said an unidentified official, quoted by the Defense Ministry website (www.26sep.net) on Thursday.

The official also said that his government was working on a rehabilitation centre to reintegrate the men and help them to give up extremism and violence once they are back in Yemen.  A total of 16 Yemenis were released from the detention since 2004 including Salem Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s former driver, and two other men who allegedly committed suicide. About 100 Yemenis are still there forming the majority of the 239 remaining prisoners in the ill-reputed detention facility. The United States wants guarantees from Yemen that the men will not return to fight with al-Qaeda if they are released and allowed to return home.

The Yemen Foreign Minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, said this week "The United States refuses to release the detainees because the Yemeni government refused the American conditions for releasing them."

"We refused the American conditions for releasing the Yemeni detainees in Guantanamo, and if we agreed to those conditions, we in the government would be held accountable by the MPs," said Al al-Qirbi,  Wednesday in Parliament where MPs asked him why Yemenis in Guantanamo have not been released.

But al-Qirbi, who did not speak on the nature of the conditions, did says that American officials were reviewing the files of about 100 Yemeni detainees in order to decide their future status in accordance with instructions laid out by President Obama, who promised to close the detention on January 10th, 2010.

Nearly 100 Yemenis remain at Guantanamo, the largest national group by far and almost half the 239 detainees at the camp. More than a dozen Yemenis have been cleared for return, and the vast majority have never been charged, but in the more than seven years since Guantanamo began receiving prisoners.  The U.S. has sent only 14 Yemenis home and only two in the past two years.

A total of 16 Yemenis were released from the detention since 2004 including Salem Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's former driver, and two other men who allegedly committed suicide. About 100 Yemenis are still there forming the majority of the 239 remaining prisoners in the ill-reputed detention facility.

For al-Moayad, 60, and Zayed, 38, they were arrested in Germany in 2003 and extradited to the United States. A US court sentenced al-Moayad in 2005 to 75 years in prison and Zayed to 45 years over alleged financial support of al-Qaeda.

A US Court of Appeals overturned the convictions last October and ordered a retrial because of inflammatory testimony about unrelated terrorism cases in the first trial. Yemen has repeatedly called for the release of the two men.

Yemeni officials say al-Moayad was lured to Germany by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) through a Yemeni agent and a Muslim American who asked the scholar to come to Germany ostensibly to receive a donation for a charity organization he runs in Sana'a.

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