16 Guantánamo captives off to Saudi Arabia

[seafan]

Source: Miami Herald

The Pentagon this weekend sent 16 long-held Guantánamo captives to Saudi Arabia, among them a man who more than a dozen times attempted suicide in the remote prison camps in southeast Cuba.
Jumah Dossari, 33, was among the best known so-called enemy combatants because his attorneys cast him as a symbol of desperation across five years of legal limbo in U.S. captivity.

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In all, the Defense Department said Monday that it sent 16 captives to Saudi Arabia over the weekend as part of an ongoing process to thin the detainee population.
The Pentagon reported the Guantánamo captive population at ''approximately 360'' on Monday. That figure includes about 50 Saudis, down from a prison camps high of an estimated 136 Saudi citizens, the second largest concentration of captives after Afghanis.

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The captives handed over to the Saudis last weekend were expected to be held while authorities investigate whether they had links to militant groups, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
Six groups of Saudis have returned from Guantánamo, the first in May 2006, and all have been detained on arrival.

The transfer was among the largest off the remote Navy base -- and comes amid continuing calls by members of Congress to close the detention center.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/416/story/172423.html