Uruguayan president José “Pepe” Mujica (photo by Vince Alongi/Wikipedia)
Six former prisoners freed from the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp arrived in Uruguay in the early hours of Sunday. They were taken to the Military Hospital in Montevideo before being released.
The former prisoners are Syrians Ahmed Adnan Ahjam, Ali Hussain Shaabaan, Omar Mahmoud Faraj, and Jihad Diyab; Abdul Bin Mohammed Abis Ourgy, from Tunisia; and Mohammed Tahanmatan, from Palestine.
Uruguayan authorities explained that the six men underwent routine tests for anemia, malnutrition, breathing problems, and other ailments, and were being kept in hospital for psychological examinations. They are between 32 and 49 years old, and were some of the first people to be taken to Guantanamo in 2002.
According to the lawyers representing some of the ex-prisoners, they are “doing very well” and look forward to learning Spanish and integrating into their new host country. The Uruguayan government is currently processing their applications for asylum.
The transfer of the six men to Uruguay was the result of an agreement between the government and its US counterpart earlier this year. There are now 136 people left in the Guantanamo Bay prison, located in Cuba. Of those, 67 have been approved to be transferred, 59 cases are being studied to determine whether they can be freed, and only 10 are facing charges, have already been charged, or have been convicted.
Uruguayan President José Mujica said that Guantanamo “is not a jail, it’s a kidnapping den, because a jail involves being subject to some legal system, to the presence of some prosecutor, to the decisions of some judge, whoever they may be, and to some minimum reference from the judicial point of view.” He added that, “for me, refuge is one of the most noble institutions that make humanity viable. Because there will always be someone who needs to escape from somewhere.”
Sunday marked the first time former Guantanamo detainees were transferred to South America, and the second time they were transferred to Latin America, since El Salvador gave refugee status to two Uighur men released from the prison in 2012.
The US government thanked the Uruguayan government for “its will to support the efforts” of the Obama administration “to close down the Detention Centre in Guantanamo Bay.”
The post Uruguay: Guantanamo Detainees Arrive in Montevideo appeared first on The Argentina Independent.