Saudi frees ex-Guantanamo inmates

Five Saudis who were held at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before they were handed over to Saudi security officials, have been released, the Saudi Interior Ministry said.

The US declines to provide details on Guantanamo prisoners

The Saudi Press Agency on Tuesday quoted an unnamed official as saying the five were released after they underwent “the regular procedures and completed the prison terms which they received according to court verdicts”.

 

The SPA did not give the names of the five, say when they were handed to Saudi authorities or for how long they were detained in Guantanamo and in Saudi jails.

Last month, the United States released three Saudi men from Guantanamo to Saudi custody.

 

The US holds more than 500 prisoners from 44 countries at the base in eastern Cuba, but the government declines to provide a breakdown of their citizenship, ages or the reasons they are being held.

 

American lawyers representing Saudi detainees at Guantanamo said in Bahrain in June that 124 Saudis were held prisoner there.

 

Yaser Esam Hamdi, a Saudi-American held in US solitary confinement for nearly three years without charges, was released and returned to Saudi Arabia in October after the Justice Department said he no longer posed a threat to the

US.

Hamdi, who was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2001, gave up his American citizenship as part of conditions of his release.  

Source: News Agencies