10 to be freed from Guantanamo

Sanaa: The Yemeni government will receive 10 more of its citizens who have been detained in Guantanamo Bay, official sources said on Thursday.

"The United States has promised to hand over to Yemen a group of about 10 men over the coming few weeks," the state-run 26 September newspaper quoted an unidentified security official as saying. Procedures for handing over are being completed, the official added.

The paper estimated that around 150 Yemenis are being held in Guantanamo.

US lawyers representing Yemeni detainees told Gulf News earlier this year that at least 20 Yemeni detainees were classified as "enemy combatants", which means they will never be handed over before the end of what is called the war on terror.

Meanwhile, a local human rights group urged the government to free the men and not to put them in Yemeni jails as it did with the first group of five returnees who spent about two years in Yemeni jails before they were released last March.

"The government must respect its citizens and deal with them like other countries that release their citizens who return from Guantanamo as soon as they arrive," said Mohammad Allaw, chairman of the Yemeni National Organisation for Defending Rights and Liberties (HOOD).

The human rights activist said that Yemen is the only country that puts its citizens in prison after they return from Guantanamo. According to a study published by the official Yemen News Agency (Saba), 95 per cent of the Yemenis in Guantanamo had nothing to do with the military activities of Al Qaida and Taliban.

Most of them were arrested in Afghanistan and Pakistan while working as teachers of Arabic language and Holy Quran, for $50 100 (Dh183.5 - 367) per month. Meanwhile, a group of 172 men will be put on trial on terror charges over the coming days, official sources said yesterday.

"The security authorities have over the past days referred to the prosecution files of 172 men suspected of having links to Al Qaida and other terrorist groups," the state-run newspaper quoted an unidentified official as saying. "Investigations are almost over now and the men will be put on trial soon."

The official pointed out that the men had been arrested over the past period on charges of forming armed groups to carry out terrorist and sabotage acts in addition to attacking foreign interests in Yemen.

The Office of the Yemeni General Prosecutor meanwhile dismissed as "untrue and baseless" reports that Yemen intends to deport three Iraqis or extradite them to the United States.

"The judicial authorities do not intend to deport the three Iraqis because there is no legal justification and the judicial verdict issued against them did not provide for that," said a statement released by the Office of the General Prosecutor.

Earlier this week, an agency quoted unnamed prosecution officials as saying "The Yemeni authorities intend to deport the three Iraqi intelligence officers after being acquitted by the court of charges of planning to attack American and British interests".

On March 4, the state security appeal court acquitted the four Iraqis (Ahmad Salman Al Zabeidi, Ahmad Muthna Al Ani, Mohammad Abdul Rahman Al Kanani and Ali Al Sadi, who was tried in absentia) of charges of plotting to bomb the US and UK embassies in Sanaa. The three men were arrested on March 26, 2003.

After the verdict, the Iraqis demanded not to be handed over to Iraqi authorities for fear of persecution.