The Department of Defense on Sunday announced the transfer of five detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the custody of the United Arab Emirates.
“As directed by the president’s Jan. 22, 2009, executive order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of these cases,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement. As a result of that review, “the Department of Defense announced today the transfer of Ali Ahmad Muhammad al-Razihi, Khalid Abd-al-Jabbar Muhammad Uthman al-Qadasi, Adil Said al-Hajj Ubayd al-Busays, Sulayman Awad Bin Uqayl al-Nahdi, and Fahmi Salem Said al-Asani,” he said.
“In accordance with statutory requirements, the secretary of Defense informed Congress of the United States’ intent to transfer these individuals,” Cook said.
Closing the Guantanamo facility was a major pledge of then-Senator Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. With his time in office wrapping up, there is great speculation that he will attempt to close the facility and move its detainees elsewhere by January 2017. Republican congressional leaders, however, have mostly vehemently opposed these moves, and are likely to oppose this one, particularly in light of Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris.
