BAGHDAD: Four Iraqi prisoners have been transferred from the US military detention center in Guantanamo Bay to Iraqi custody, two senior Iraqi security officials said yesterday.
The officials said the men were arrested in Afghanistan, then transferred to Guantanamo, before eventually being released to the Iraqis for questioning.
“We have interrogated four Iraqi men who are now in our custody,” one of the officials said, adding the detainees included a Shiite from Basra. He said one more Iraqi citizen remains at the US naval base in Cuba and was seeking refugee status in the United States.
The officials, who spoke on condition on anonymity, did not give a timeframe for their release.
The sister of one of the prisoners, Hassan Abdul-Hadi Al-Jawhar, said the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that her brother had been released. The Red Cross said it would not comment on individual cases.
US President Barack Obama has ordered the detention center in Cuba to be closed within a year as part of his overhaul of US national security policy. An estimated 245 men are being held, most of whom have been detained for years without being charged.
Neda Abdul-Hadi said her brother disappeared in 1999 while serving with the Iraqi military under Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq.
After almost losing hope, she said the family received a letter from Hassan in 2004 saying he was in Guantanamo.
