Defense Department officials announced that another detainee was transferred from Guantanamo Bay and placed in the custody of the Italian government.
Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman has been at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, but military officials have been conducting security reviews to see which detainees could be transferred to foreign facilities. “As a result of that review, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, Suleiman was unanimously approved for transfer by the six departments and agencies comprising the task force,” the Defense Department announcement said.
Suleiman was arrested by Pakistani police and transferred to U.S. custody after training with al Qaeda. When he was questioned, he claimed to have “forgotten nearly all aspects of his life from the time he traveled to Pakistan until he was taken into custody,” according to DOD documents published by the New York Times. The file listed Suleiman as a “high risk” threat to the United States.
“The United States is grateful to the government of Italy for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility,” the Pentagon said Sunday. “The United States coordinated with the government of Italy to ensure this transfer took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.”
The transfer comes days after lawmakers questioned State Department and Defense Department officials about the disappearance of another former Guantanamo Bay detainee who was sent to Uruguay. Lee Wolosky, the State Department special envoy for closing Guantanamo Bay, defended the transfer decision.
“‘While we would have preferred that Mr. [Jihad] Diyab remained in Uruguay — if, in fact, he is not in Uruguay currently — until the expiration of the two-year resettlement program,’ he said, the standard of the deal with Uruguay is not ‘elimination of risk, it is mitigation of risk,'” the New York Times quoted Wolosky as testifying.
Seventy-eight detainees remain in Guantanamo Bay.
