The Department of Defense announced today that it transferred three detainees from Guantanamo Bay (GTMO), Cuba, to France for prosecution. This transfer increases the number to 211 detainees who have departed GTMO.
The decision to transfer or release a detainee is based on many factors, including whether the detainee is of further intelligence value to the United States and whether the detainee is believed to pose a continuing threat to the United States if released.
There are ongoing processes to review the status of detainees. A determination about the continued detention or transfer of a detainee is based on the best information and evidence available at the time. The circumstances in which detainees are apprehended can be ambiguous, and many of the detainees are highly skilled in concealing the truth.
During the course of the war on terrorism, the department expects that there will be other transfers or releases of detainees.
Because of operational and security considerations, no further details can be provided.
Prior to this transfer, 208 detainees had departed GTMO - 146 for release, and 62 transferred to the control of other governments (29 to Pakistan, five to Morocco, four to France, seven to Russia, four to Saudi Arabia, one to Spain, one to Sweden, one to Kuwait, one to Australia and nine to Great Britain). Two hundred and eleven detainees have now departed Guantanamo. There are approximately 540 detainees currently at Guantanamo.
U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Terry Nelson fits a new pair of shoes on a young Bedouin girl in a village near Tallil Air Base, Iraq, on March 5, 2005. Nelson, from the 388th Fighter Wing, Hill Air Force Base, Utah, is deployed with the 407th Air Expeditionary Group as the Chief of Group Public Affairs. DoD photo by Master Sgt. Mark Bucher, U.S. Air Force. (Released) 050305-F-3408B-029
Tuesday, March 08, 2005:
BAGHDAD - A high-ranking official with the interior ministry in Iraq was gunned down in broad daylight outside his home in Baghdad on Tuesday, a security source said.
"Major General Ghazi Mohammed Issa, the deputy director of the interior ministry's naturalisation department, was killed outside his home at 8 am (0500 GMT) by masked gunmen in a car," Sabah Kadhim, a senior advisor at the ministry, told AFP.
Issa, an expert on naturalisation, was due to leave Tuesday for Iran to vet Iraqi refugees expelled from under Saddam Hussein's old regime who now wished to return home, Kadhim said.
More than 1,300 police and members of the national guard have been killed by rebels since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.
03/08/2005 11:37 GMT
AFP and Turkish Press