Cuba, January 06: The White House has decided not to transfer any more Guantanamo inmates to Yemen, citing the possibility that they could slip back into extremism.
Nearly half of the 198 prisoners left at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility are Yemenis.
Seven Yemeni detainees have already been sent home by the Barack Obama administration, including six in December. Several others were repatriated during the George W. Bush administration.
Following a failed plot to bomb a US airliner on Christmas Day by a 23-year-old Nigerian, who was allegedly trained in Yemen, the White House announced on Tuesday that the transfer of Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to Yemen would be suspended, at least for the time being.
It is not clear how long the suspension will last, but White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters that while the US remains committed to closing the facility, “the determination has been made that right now any additional transfers to Yemen is not a good idea.”
However, Obama’s top anti-terrorism official, John Brennan, said on Sunday that the US would continue to repatriate Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen, “at the right time and the right pace and in the right way.”
Obama has come under intense pressure from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in Congress over his decision to close the Guantanamo prison, with a number of Democrats and Republicans saying that the nation faces new “terrorist threats.”
But Gibbs said that a number of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay could be moved to the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois, which has been selected by the administration.
——-Agencies