Guantanamo prisoners to be sent home

Bush’s administration is considering transferring about 70% of Guantanamo detainees to their home countries, it emerged yesterday.

According to senior U.S. officials, the move is an attempt to reduce the number of "enemy combatants" in U.S. custody.

Matt Waxman, the deputy assistant secretary of defence for detainee affairs, asserted that the move is not a precursor to shut down Guantanamo.

"We don't want to be the world's jailer," he said. "We think a more prudent course is to share responsibility with our coalition partners for keeping these individuals from fighting us again.

"In waging the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban we will continue to capture enemy fighters and need to prevent them from returning to the battlefield, but it need not be the U.S. who detains them for the long term."

Earlier this week the U.S. government agreed to transfer 110 detainees held at Guantanamo prison to Afghanistan. The deal also includes handing over 350 prisoners the U.S. holds at Bagram air base near Kabul.

Similar deals are in the pipeline with Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the officials added.

The deal was reached during a meeting between the U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes, Pierre-Richard and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who demanded custody of his countrymen during a visit to Washington earlier this year.

Mr. Prosper also held with Saudi Arabia, but negotiations were cut off after the Saudi King’s death.

"We're now engaging the countries with the largest populations, so we expect to see the largest potential movement from Guantanamo," Mr. Prosper told the Washington Post.

The U.S. is negotiating with authorities to send 129 Saudis and 107 Yemenis from Guantanamo to the custody of their home countries, Mr. Prosper said.

According to the U.S. decision, the number of detainees it holds in Guantanamo will be reduced from 510 to 164.

A spokesman for the state department said that Washington is going to help the Afghan government build its capacity to detain the prisoners currently held by the U.S.

"This process is part of our ongoing efforts to transfer detainees to their home countries as appropriate and when we receive assurances that the country can and will take appropriate steps to ensure that these individuals do not pose a continuing threat," she said.

108 detainees died in U.S. custody since the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Guantanamo Bay has been the focus of several international Human Rights organization for torture and other violations committed by the United States in the detention center.