US releases four Chinese Guantanamo detainees

FOUR Guantanamo Bay detainees have been released and resettled in Bermuda, US officials said.

The four are part of a group of 17 Chinese Muslims who have been in legal limbo at the military detention center in Cuba.

Abdul Nasser, one of the four detainees who landed in Bermuda early yesterday morning, issued a statement through his lawyers, saying: “Growing up under communism we always dreamed of living in peace and working in a free society like this one. Today you have let freedom ring.”

It’s the first time since 2006 that the US has successfully resettled any of Guantanamo’s population of Uighurs, whose fate has been wending through the courts for years. The US government had determined that they weren’t enemy combatants and should be released. But China resisted their release, contending they were part of a Chinese separatist movement, and it had been unclear where they would go free.

The Uighur detainees are from a Chinese region that borders several Central Asian nations, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they were captured in 2001. Thirteen other Uighurs remain to be freed from Guantanamo.

The Justice Department issued a statement thanking the government of Bermuda for helping resettle four of the detainees. Arrangements are being made for other Uighurs to be sent to the Pacific island nation of Palau.

Lawyers said they will be part of Bermuda’s guest worker programme.

US officials did not say what restrictions, if any, would be placed on the Uighurs as they are resettled in Bermuda.

“We will consult regularly with the government of Bermuda on the status of these individuals,” said justice spokesman Dean Boyd.

One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the four would not be allowed to travel to the US without prior approval from American authorities.

The departure of the four detainees for Bermuda — a British territory — leaves 234 detainees remaining at Guantanamo, and comes in a busy week at the military base in Cuba.

On Tuesday, authorities brought detainee Ahmed Ghailani to New York to face trial in civilian court for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa.