Six former Guantanamo Bay detainees released to Uruguay remain a terrorist threat, in spite of assurances by the Obama administration, because they do not appear to be under any of the restrictions U.S. officials promised had been imposed, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said in a letter released Wednesday.
In the April 29 letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Royce seeks an explanation for why committee staff sent to investigate the detainees found them living without apparent restrictions and free to travel.
“This transfer appears to be inconsistent with U.S. law, as Uruguay has not taken steps to mitigate the risk that these detainees pose to the United States, including the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo,” Royce wrote.
The six — four Syrians, a Palestinian and a Tunisian — were released Dec. 7. Then-President Jose Mujica welcomed them as refugees and said they would be allowed to lead normal lives among the South American country’s small Muslim population.
The four Syrians — Ahmed Adnan Ahjam, Ali Hussain Shaabaan, Omar Mahmoud Faraj and Jihad Diyab — all are Islamist extremists who fought the regime of President Bashar Assad before being captured fighting for al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Congressional Republicans have said their histories are an example of why detainees like them remain a danger both to U.S. security and the security of their new homelands, especially in light of stepped-up U.S. and allied military action in the Middle East to counter the Islamic State. The Senate Armed Services Committee in February approved legislation that would effectively prevent President Obama from releasing any more detainees from the military prison in Cuba.
Royce notes in his letter that his staff’s investigation found evidence to bolster that concern.
“Uruguayan legislators and officials reported that while the government of Uruguay agreed to accept the detainees per formal U.S. government request, the only way the transfers would be permissible under Uruguayan law was for the detainees to arrive in Uruguay as refugees,” Royce wrote.
“Thus, the administration facilitated Uruguayan access to the detainees while still in Guantanamo Bay to encourage them to sign formal petitions for refugee status in Uruguay. According to two Uruguayan senators with whom committee staff spoke, once they arrived in Uruguay as refugees, Uruguayan law prohibited Uruguayan officials from conducting monitoring, surveillance or imposing travel restrictions on the detainees.”
He said Uruguayan officials also provided each of the men with identity cards allowing them to travel within the Mercosur trade bloc, including neighboring Brazil, where U.S. officials have expressed concern about activities by supporters of Islamist extremist groups, including al Qaeda.
“This freedom of widespread movement would seem to make effective mitigation, if attempted, near impossible,” Royce wrote.
The men also were provided housing by Uruguayan labor union officials just six blocks from the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo, he wrote.
“I remain concerned that this close proximity to the embassy, combined with the apparent lack of host country mitigation measures, poses a potential risk to the safety and security of our embassy and its employees, including local hires.”
The administration remains committed to closing Guantanamo, and more releases are expected from among the 122 detainees who remain. Of those, 54 have been approved for transfer by a review process instituted in 2009, and officials have insisted that proper safeguards have been put in place for each detainee released or transferred to another country.
“The United States stays in close touch with our partners who are working with us in the effort to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay as they apply the security requirements that we and they believe are necessary to protect the citizens in both our countries,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Tuesday.
