The United States approved the release of five detainees from the Guantanamo military prison, where 39 prisoners suspected of being accomplices of terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda are still being held, according to official Pentagon documents consulted on Wednesday.
The Yemenis Mouaz Hamza al-Alaoui, Souheil al-Charabi and Omar al-Rammah, the Somali Guled Hassan Duran and the Kenyan Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu received their discharge certificates at the end of 2021, according to new documents released this week by the Commission of Guantanamo Review.
The authorization of their release brings to 18 the number of detainees who could leave this prison if the United States finds a destination for them, which could delay their release because Washington does not repatriate the former prisoners to Yemen, a country in the grip of a violent civil war, nor to Somalia, another nation in crisis.
Independent experts working for the United Nations urged the United States this week to close its military prison at Guantanamo, where "relentless violations of human rights".
The detention center, inaugurated as part of the "war on terror" Just 20 years ago, after the jihadist attacks of September 11, it still houses 39 detainees.
Ten of them, including the suspected mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are awaiting trial by a military commission, which has handed down only two convictions in two decades.
Two have been sentenced and another nine await their release. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the US administration "remains committed to closing the Guantánamo Bay prison".
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