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Pentagon Said 15 Saudi Captives Left Guantánamo
CAROL ROSENBERG
Miami Herald
May 18, 2006
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- A Royal Saudi 747 airline lifted off from this isolated U.S. Navy outpost before dawn this morning, carrying at least 15 Saudi captives to investigation and perhaps trial in their homelands.
The aircraft bearing distinctive crossed swords and palm tree on its tail wing arrived just before midnight Wednesday at this remote base's single runway airstrip amid a veil of secrecy that generally surrounds ongoing detainee operations.
Earlier, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister Saud al Faisal told reporters in Washington that 16 Saudi ''enemy combatants'' among an estimated 480 held here would be transferred to Saudi jails in coming days.
When the operation ends, with the aircraft's arrival in the oil-rich kingdom, the U.S. will have undertaken the first large-scale transfer from this isolated island prison camp in more than a year.
Late Thursday, The Defense Department announced an unexplained discrepancy: An official announcement said the Defense Department ``transferred 15 Saudi detainees from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Saudi Arabia.''
It has long been Defense Department policy to withhold information on transfers, citing ''operational concerns,'' until the captives arrive on foreign soil.
Nonetheless, a 747 jet bearing the Saudi logo was a rare sight at this base in southeast Cuba. Aircraft are generally more of the steel gray military cargo variety -- or a white Air Force distinguished-visitor's jet aircraft, emblazoned with The United States of America on its side.
''Upon their return to Saudi Arabia, the 16 will be jailed, and the proof against them examined,'' said a Saudi Embassy news release on Wednesday. ``They will then either be put on trial or released. For those found guilty at trial, punishments will be determined by the courts.''
Either way, the was largest number of captives sent from this U.S. naval base since April 2005, when 17 detainees were sent to Afghanistan and one to Turkey.
On May 5, the State Department announced that it had negotiated the resettlement -- in Albania -- of five Muslim Uighurs from China. Rather than repatriate the five to China, for fear they would be persecuted, the United States sought a third country in which to settle them.
The Saudi statement comes amid a Bush administration effort to thin the population at the Guantánamo interrogation and detention center. The State Department had been negotiating release agreements for about 140 of the 480 captives who have been approved for transfer or release by military review panels.
The Defense Department announcement Thursday said with the release of 15 -- not 16 -- Saudis, 287 detainees have departed Guantánamo since the Pentagon established the offshore detention center for suspected terror suspects in January 2002.
The Pentagon broke down the figure 287 to 192 released and 95 transferred to other governments, some for continued custody, others for asylum.
The nations that have received Guantánamo captives include Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden and Uganda.
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