Prisoner refuses to leave Guantanamo as 2 depart for Balkans

Abd al-Aziz Abduh Abdallah Ali Al-Suwaydi will be transferred “from the detention facility at Guanatnamo Bay to the Government of Montenegro”.

The release also stated the United States’ gratitude to the governments of Bosnia and Montenegro “for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing USA efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility”.

President Obama has authorized the release of 17 prisoners from Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp this month, but only 16 actually left.

Al Sawah, who holds citizenship in Bosnia and Egypt, is an admitted member of Al-Qaida who developed specialized explosives to be used against USA and coalition forces, according to information in the New York Times Guantanamo Docket.

A third prisoner, Muhammad Bawazir, refused to accept resettlement. Bwazir understood he couldn’t go home to his native Yemen but wanted to go to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia or Indonesia where he had his mother, brothers or aunts and uncles.

The Department of Defense said Tariq al-Sawah, an Egyptian whose health had deteriorated so significantly at Guantanamo that his lawyers at one point feared he might die there, was sent to Bosnia. The prisoner was kept in a special housing unit away from other prisoners and had reportedly cooperated with authorities. He is open and friendly and looks European.

“When people pass him on the street”, Remes continues, “they will not even notice him”. Attorney John Chandler says Bawazir insisted on being sent to one of several countries where he has family since he couldn’t return to Yemen.

“The detainee remains approved for transfer”, he added. The prisoner, who has been held at Guantanamo since he was 21 and is now 35, was deeply reluctant to start over in a place he did not know. “I urged him to take it”.

Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said Thursday that he hopes the plan “soon will go to Congress for their consideration”.

“I think our strategy that we have been pursuing for quite some time is familiar to those of you who have been watching this issue for years now”, Earnest said before repeating the administration’s well-rehearsed arguments that the prison is costly for taxpayers and a recruiting tool for extremists around the world.