The United States has held a total of 115 Yemeni citizens at Guantanamo Bay, forty-two of whom have since been transferred out of the facility. Only Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia had a greater number of their citizens held in the

Guantanamo Bay detention camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...

. By January 2008, the Yemenis in Guantanamo represented the largest group of detainees. Among the Yemeni detainees currently held (as of November 2015), 44 are recommended for transfer out of the facility, while twenty-three are being held indefinitely and are not recommended for transfer. Only

Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bahlul Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al-Bahlul (born September 11, 1969) is a Yemeni citizen who has been held as an enemy combatant since 2002 in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp. He boycotted the Guantanamo Military Commissions, arguing that ...

has been convicted by military tribunal, and his conviction has been vacated on appeal. Two Yemeni detainees are awaiting trials by military commissions, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Walid Bin Attash. __TOC__

Events

A delegation of Yemeni officials visited Guantanamo shortly after it opened in January 2002. On March 12, 2008,

Mark Falkoff Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Finn ...

of the Center for Constitutional Rights issued a call for the repatriation of the Yemeni detainees, reporting that 95 Yemenis remained in detention, and they now constituted more than a third of the total detainee population. Falkoff wrote that the delay in his release is due to a failure of the United States and Yemeni governments to reach an agreement on the security arrangements for the detainees, following their repatriation. By contrast, almost all the 133

Saudi detainees in Guantanamo A total of 133 Saudi citizens have been held in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps at its naval base in Cuba since January 2002. Most had been swept up in Afghanistan following the US invasion in the fall of 2001, and they were clas ...

had been sent home in 2006 and 2007.

Impact of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's alleged attempted suicide bombing

On December 25, 2009, Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to set off a

suicide bomb A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...

on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. By December 27, 2009, responding to rumors that Abdulmutallab had confessed to being trained and equipped in Yemen, various American politicians, including Joe Lieberman,

Pete Hoekstra Cornelis Piet "Pete" Hoekstra (; born October 30, 1953) is a Dutch-American politician who served as the United States Ambassador to the Netherlands from January 10, 2018, to January 17, 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he previously ser ...

, Peter T. King and

Bennie Thompson Bennie Gordon Thompson (born January 28, 1948) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for since 1993. A member of the Democratic Party, Thompson has been the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security since 2019 and from ...

, called for American President Barack Obama to halt plans to repatriate the Yemenis.

Repatriation negotiations

An article published in the '' Yemen Post'' on November 13, 2012, reported on secret terms in the US-Yemeni repatriation negotiations. Yemen recently had a change in administration. Officials of the new administration said, ''"Saleh demanded $200 million in return for receiving the Yemeni detainees, but the US offered him only $20 million. The two sides could not reach an agreement to release the detainees by then."'

Repatriated detainees

Several returned Yemeni detainees were charged and stood trial, following their repatriation. Yemen established a special Criminal Court for Terrorism where their trials took place. On June 7, 2008, the Yemeni site '' Al Sahwa Net'' reported that negotiations were advanced for the repatriation of approximately seventy Yemeni detainees. On June 7, 2008, '' Yemen Online'' reported that several Yemeni detainees had recently been allowed to their first phone calls to their families. The article also reported that "informed sources" said

Stephan Seche Stephan may refer to: * Stephan, South Dakota, United States * Stephan (given name), a masculine given name * Stephan (surname), a Breton-language surname See also * Sankt-Stephan * Stefan (disambiguation) * Stephan-Oterma * Stephani * Step ...

, the American ambassador had returned to the US to brief the

Bush Bush commonly refers to: * Shrub, a small or medium woody plant Bush, Bushes, or the bush may also refer to: People * Bush (surname), including any of several people with that name **Bush family, a prominent American family that includes: *** ...

Presidency on Yemen's rehabilitation program for repatriated detainees.

List of Yemeni detainees in Guantanamo

References

External links

Fahed Abdullah Ahmad Ghazi's (a.k.a. Fahd Ghazy) Guantanamo detainee assessment via Wikileaks

Yemenis cleared for release held in Guantanamo for years
May 2011 {{DEFAULTSORT:Yemeni Captives In Guantanamo * Lists of Guantanamo Bay detainees by nationality United States–Yemen relations Yemeni people imprisoned abroad