US to release 24 Cuba captives

The United States is to release 24 prisoners from the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the coming weeks, an American envoy has said.

More than 600 prisoners accused of ties to al-Qaida or the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan have been held incommunicado in Guantanamo Bay following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Sixty-four prisoners have already been freed and sent to their home countries.

“We expect to see almost two dozen individuals released in the coming weeks who no longer pose a threat to the international community,” Pierre-Richard Prosper, the US ambassador at large for war crimes, said last night at a news conference at the US embassy in Madrid.

He would not comment on the nationalities of the detainees or specify the date of their expected release.

Several dozen other prisoners would be sent to their home countries for a lengthy process of investigation, detention and prosecution, Prosper said. He described these detainees as posing “a medium-level threat” to the international community.

Officials at Guantanamo and the Pentagon in Washington declined yesterday to discuss any possible releases of detainees. The US military has said for security reasons it will only comment on detainee transfers after they are complete.

Prosper was in Madrid to meet Spanish officials from the interior, justice and foreign ministries to discuss the case of a Spanish citizen held in Guantanamo. He confirmed that the man, who is from Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, was not among those due to be released.

Although Spain has been a staunch supporter of the Bush administration and its war on terror, Spanish foreign minister Ana Palacio has called the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo a “major error” and complained that the prisoners were being held in what she called legal limbo.

Prosper downplayed Palacio’s remarks, saying: “We’ve appreciated her frankness Friends should tell friends what they think.”

Prosper said the detainees represented a threat to the world and that their release must be considered carefully as, he said, “lives depend upon the decision that will be made”.