Fourth Guantanamo detainee turned over to Bahraini authorities
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Sunday October 15, 2006
Manama- The US military on Sunday turned over a fourth detainee from the military prison on Guantanamo Bay to Bahraini authorities, as two more Bahrainis continue to be held at the detention centre in Cuba. Salah Abdul Rasool al-Blooshi, 24, who arrived earlier Sunday in Bahrain, appeared in front of the public prosecutor, where he was questioned and later released to his parents.
Bahraini authorities have not charged al-Blooshi, and he is free to go, his father, Abdul Rasool, told reporters after meeting his son at the public prosecutor’s office.
Fourth Guantanamo detainee turned over to Bahraini authorities
dpa German Press Agency
Published: Sunday October 15, 2006
Manama- The US military on Sunday turned over a fourth detainee from the military prison on Guantanamo Bay to Bahraini authorities, as two more Bahrainis continue to be held at the detention centre in Cuba. Salah Abdul Rasool al-Blooshi, 24, who arrived earlier Sunday in Bahrain, appeared in front of the public prosecutor, where he was questioned and later released to his parents.
Bahraini authorities have not charged al-Blooshi, and he is free to go, his father, Abdul Rasool, told reporters after meeting his son at the public prosecutor’s office.
“We are grateful for the king, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the lawyers, and Nabeel Rajab from the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights for all their efforts to help secure the release of my son,” he said.
Abdul Rasool, who said that neither he or his son would like to appear in the media, called on Bahrain’s king, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, to continue his efforts to secure the release of the two Bahrainis who remain in Guantanamo.
Bahrain News Agency (BNA) late Sunday quoted Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed al-Khalifa as calling on the US government to release the remaining Bahrainis at Guantanamo and close down the camp.
“The Foreign Ministry is working with the US side and intensifying negotiations with the US embassy to permanently close the file of the Bahraini detainees in Guantanamo,” BNA quoted Shaikh Khalid saying.
He pointed out that the public prosecutor would determine the course of legal action in al-Blooshi’s case based on the Bahraini criminal code, and said that a plan had been put in place for al- Blooshi’s physical and psychological rehabilitation to aid his reintegration him into society.
Al-Blooshi was the fourth Bahraini to be released from the Guantanamo detention centre, after the US turned over Abdullah Majid al-Naimi, 25, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, 26, and Adel Kamel Hajee, 42, to Bahraini authorities on November 5, 2005.
Two more Bahrainis, Juma al-Dossary, 32, and Isa al-Murbati, 42, remain at Guantanamo.
Al-Blooshi was accused by the US of being a recruiter for the terrorist network al-Qaeda. He denies the allegation, maintaining that he was captured while in Afghanistan on a humanitarian mission.
According to the US military, al-Blooshi was arrested in December 2001 on the Pakistani border as he tried leave Afghanistan.
US allegations against al-Blooshi that surfaced following his second Administrative Review Board hearing earlier this year said that he had travelled to Afghanistan before September 11 to ensure that Afghans remained Salafi Muslims, upon hearing about Buddhist statues being destroyed at Bamyan.
His American lawyer, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, said that the accusations even if true did not make his client a threat to the United States. He revealed in July that al-Blooshi was asked by military integrators about his activities in the 1995 Bosnia war – when he was 14 – during his last interrogation in 2005.
Abdul Rasool maintained his son’s innocence and has said that al- Blooshi was a victim of Pakistani bountyhunters, who turned him to US troops in Afghanistan for money.
Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) Vice President Nabeel Rajab told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the group was excited about al- Blooshi’s release.
“This is very good news, but this is not the end of the road for us,” he said. “We will continue our work to secure the release of the remaining Bahraini detainees in particular and all the detainees in general.”
The BCHR had campaigned for almost five years for Guantanamo detainees from the Gulf to be allowed contact with their families and lawyers, and worked with other human rights organizations to secure their release.
Some 335 prisoners have been transferred out of Guantanamo since the first prisoners were flown there in January 2002, and another 110 of the 450 still at the jail have been declared eligible for transfer or release, according to the US Defence Department.
A number of human-rights groups, politicians and activists have called in the last two years for the US government to either charge the detainees so they can defend themselves in court, or to release them to their home countries.
© 2006 dpa German Press Agency
