RIYADH, 28 July 2005 — A US delegation will visit Saudi Arabia within a week to discuss the repatriation of Saudi detainees to the Kingdom, said a US Embassy spokesman here yesterday.
A total of 121 Saudi citizens are still detained at the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; three Saudi citizens were handed over to the Kingdom by the US authorities last week.
Andrew Mitchell, press attache at the US Embassy in Riyadh, said a US delegation led by Pierre-Richard Prosper, ambassador-at-large at the Office of War Crimes Issues, would be coming to Saudi Arabia within a week or so “to discuss the detainee issues.” Although confirming the arrival of this important American delegation Mitchell did not give specific date about the visit “for security reasons.”
Besides Saudi Arabia, the delegation will also visit Afghanistan to see what can be done to send more detainees home. Out of 510 prisoners of 36 nationalities now at Guantanamo, Saudis and Afghans represent the largest number. Eight prisoners including three Saudi citizens, two Afghans, one Sudanese and one Jordanian were repatriated last week. An eighth man, a Moroccan was extradited to Spain, where he will face trail.
Referring to the visit of the US delegation to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, Prosper said that he would travel to Riyadh and Kabul to work out both the modalities to send some more detainees home and whether these governments could control the threat some may still pose.
“We would prefer not to have these individuals in Guantanamo and have their countries share the burden,” said the ambassador-at-large, in a report recently.
Moreover, the visit of the US delegation is significant considering that the Saudi government has been exerting continuous efforts to repatriate its citizens detained abroad.
According to reports, Saudi lawyers have met their US counterparts who could defend those still being held in case of a trial in the US. But the lawyer, Kateb Al-Shammari, said the detainees would most probably be released “as a result of a political decision following the contacts between Saudi and US authorities.”
The US politicians and human rights organizations across the world have increased pressure on Washington to close the camp in Cuba. The family and the friends of detainees have also stepped up efforts to influence the US administration for the release of the innocent detainees.
Of late, the detention camp has been the focus of worldwide controversy following allegations that US forces are holding many innocent people at the camp and have also abused detainees.
