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Saudi
Team to Check on Saudi Detainees in Guantanamo
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| Several
Saudi detainees are innocent and have no links to Al-Qaeda.
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RIYADH,
June 30 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Saudi Arabia has
dispatched a team of experts to inspect the conditions of over 100 of
its nationals detained in the U.S. Guantanamo base in Cuba after
receiving a go ahead from Washington, a Saudi newspaper said Saturday,
June 29.
The
team, composed of officials from the interior and foreign ministries,
left the kingdom Friday, June 28, an interior ministry source said,
quoted in the Al-Watan daily, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The
source declined to say whether the team would press for the
repatriation of the detainees, adding that this might happen only
after the team reports back to Riyadh.
However,
U.S. military officials at Guantanamo would not confirm whether Saudi
officials were due to visit, reported BBC’s online news
service.
"There's
nothing we can talk about in terms of foreign delegation visits,"
spokesman James Bell said.
Several
Saudi detainees are innocent and have no links to Al-Qaeda, says Saudi
Arabia, who has asked for its citizens be turned over for
interrogation in the kingdom.
More
than 560 Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters, nationals of over 30
countries, are being held in Guantanamo, where they were transferred
from Afghanistan or Pakistan following the September 11 attacks on New
York and Washington.
Saudi
Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz said in January there
were more than 100 Saudis detained in Guantanamo. He requested their
repatriation to interrogate them in the kingdom.
He
later suggested that Riyadh would, if allowed, send a commission of
inquiry to Guantanamo to interrogate them there, AFP reported.
U.S.
authorities have refused to give the Guantanamo detainees
prisoner-of-war status, as set out under the Geneva Conventions, and
are reserving the right to try them before secret U.S. military
tribunals that have the power to impose the death penalty. So far,
none of them have been charged with any crime.
The
United States launched a military offensive against Afghanistan in
October in retaliation for the September attacks, which it blamed on
Saudi-born Afghan-based dissident Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda
network.
Bin
Laden was stripped of his Saudi citizenship after calling for the
overthrow of the ruling Saudi dynasty.
Sixteen
foreign delegations have visited Guantanamo to check on their
citizens' welfare, question them and deliver mail.
British
officials have visited the seven British nationals there three
times.
So
far, none of the detainees have been charged with any crime.
On
June 27, Qatar’s former justice minister Mohammad Najib al-Nauimi
told AFP that a group of prisoners held at the base will be freed
shortly after months in detention.
"Some
detainees from Guantanamo will be set free in the near future,"
said Nauimi, who heads a panel of lawyers defending the suspected
members of Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network or the Taliban militia.
Nauimi
said he had just returned from the United States where he had numerous
meetings, including at the Pentagon and was assured by U.S. sources
that some men were to be released soon. He refused to give any
details, however.
He
added that another 245 suspects – mainly Arabs – were being held
in Afghanistan and up to 29 others in Pakistan.
"No
clear charges have been brought against the detainees," Nauimi
said, noting that U.S. authorities consider the men to be under
questioning.
"I
believe the prisoners have nothing to do with Al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
They were arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong
time," he said urging Arab countries to cooperate with his panel.
A
day before Nauimi made his comments, AFP reported that a group of
parents of Kuwaiti prisoners held at the base are suing for the right
to see their sons, and for the prisoners to be given access to legal
counsel.
Quoting
a U.S. Justice Department source, AFP said that a U.S. federal judge
met with the families.
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