21 Dec 2009

Twelve Guantanamo Bay inmates go home

9:31 am on 21 December 2009

The United States has repatriated 12 inmates from its Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.

The US Justice Departmentment says six Yemenis, four Afghans and two Somali detainees were sent to their homelands over the weekend.

The US plans to send 116 detainees to their home countries or to third countries willing to accept them, though President Barack Obama acknowledged in November that he would miss his January deadline for closing down the controversial camp.

One of the newly freed men, Mohamed Suleiman Barre, who was returned to Somalia at the weekend, says he was mainly held in solitary confinement at Guantanamo Bay. He had been taken there from Afghanistan, where he says he was badly tortured, after being

questioned by US intelligence officials in Pakistan.

Yemenis account for nearly half of the 198 detainees who remain at the camp. Officials fear many could rejoin militant groups if sent back to Yemen.