The United States has sent four of the 17 Chinese Turkic Muslims (Uighurs) held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, to Bermuda, the Department of Justice announced in Washington Thursday.
It said the detainees, who had been "cleared for release by the prior administration after they were found not to be enemy combatants, left Guantanamo Bay today pursuant to an arrangement between the United States and the government of Bermuda."
In a statement issued through his lawyer on arrival at the North Atlantic archipelago Thursday morning, Abdul Nasser, one of the four detainees, said: "Growing up under communism, we always dreamed of living in peace and working in free society like this one. Today, you let freedom ring."
U.S. troops arrested 22 Uighurs during their invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and kept them in Guantanamo Bay prison since then. Five of them were cleared of charges, and were re-settled in Albania in 2006.
"The transfer of these detainees will make America safer," said Attorney General Eric Holder.
He expressed Washington's gratitude to the government of Bermuda for "helping accomplish the President's objective of closing Guantanamo."
The rest of the Uighurs are expected to be sent to the remote Pacific archipelago-nation of Palau, which does not have diplomatic ties with China, temporarily.
The gesture of the two tiny nations came as great relief for the Obama administration, which faced fierce congressional opposition to releasing them on U.S. soil. Although the U.S. government found that the 17 men were not "enemy combatants," their fate was problematic out of concern for their safety if they were repatriated to China.
On its part, China demanded the repatriation of these Uighurs, on the ground that the organization of these persons was declared 'terrorist' by the U.N. Security Council.
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