WASHINGTON, 30 January 2004 — The United States announced yesterday it had released three juvenile “enemy combatants” held at the US military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and flown them to their home country. The three, ranging from 13 to 15 years old, were the only juveniles among 660 suspected Taleban and Al-Qaeda guerrillas being held without charge at the US naval base.

Detention of the prisoners, especially the youngsters, has drawn major criticism from human rights groups and governments who have urged the United States to file charges against the detainees or release them.

The Pentagon did not say where the three juveniles were flown, but one US official told Reuters the youngsters were returned to Afghanistan — where they were arrested more than a year ago — to be set free.

“With the assistance of non-governmental organizations, the juveniles will be resettled in their home country. It is our goal to return them to an environment where they have an opportunity to re-integrate into civil society,” the Defense Department said in a statement.

It said that senior US officials had decided to free the three because they were no longer a threat to America in the terror war sparked by September 2001 attacks on America.

Most of the prisoners at Guantanamo were captured in the war in Afghanistan following the attacks that Washington blames on fugitive Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda guerrilla network.

The release of the three juveniles brought to 91 the number of detainees removed from the US Navy Base prison since the expanded facility was built there after the attacks. Four of those were returned to Saudi Arabia for continued detention and the others to their home countries to be set free.

Court Keeps Guantanamo Suspects Isolated

The Supreme Court stepped in Wednesday to temporarily continue the isolation of terrorism suspects at the Navy base in Cuba.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor granted a request from the Bush administration to stop a lower court from communicating with a detainee at Guantanamo Bay.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals had planned to notify the detainee of that court’s ruling in December that Guantanamo prisoners should be allowed to see lawyers and have access to courts.

O’Connor granted the government’s request to put that ruling on hold, but she said the high court could reconsider after it hears from lawyers for the detainee, Falen Gherebi.

O’Connor has jurisdiction over appeals from the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit.

Solicitor General Theodore Olson had asked the high court earlier Wednesday to block any developments in a class-action case over treatment of the Guantanamo detainees until the Supreme Court decides this year, in a separate case, whether Guantanamo detainees may contest their captivity in American courts.

The Supreme Court announced in November that it would consider appeals on behalf of Guantanamo inmates. A month later, a panel of the 9th Circuit issued the ruling in favor of Gherebi, a Libyan captured in Afghanistan.