The

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

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 Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

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 Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah bin al-Shibh ( ar, رمزي محمد عبدالله بن الشيبة; also transliterated as bin al-Shaibah; born 1 May 1972Walid Bin Attash Walid Muhammad Salih bin Mubarak bin Attash ( ar, وليد محمد صالح بن مبارك بن عتش; born 1978) is a Yemeni prisoner held in extrajudicial detention at the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camp and is suspected of pla ...

. __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 The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) is a 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,

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab ( ar, عمر فاروق عبد المطلب ; also known as Umar Abdul Mutallab and Omar Farooq al-Nigeri; born December 22, 1986) popularly referred to as the "Underwear Bomber" or "Christmas Bomber", is a Nigerian-bor ...

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 ...

Northwest Airlines Flight 253 The attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 occurred on December 25, 2009, aboard an Airbus A330 as it prepared to land at Detroit Metropolitan Airport following a transatlantic flight from Amsterdam. Attributed to the terrori ...

. By December 27, 2009, responding to rumors that Abdulmutallab had confessed to being trained and equipped in Yemen, various American politicians, including

Joe Lieberman Joseph Isadore Lieberman (; born February 24, 1942) is an American politician, lobbyist, and attorney who served as a United States Senate, United States senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. A former member of the Democratic Party (Uni ...

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 Peter Thomas King (born April 5, 1944) is a former American politician who represented New York in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he represented a South Shore Long Island district that in ...

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 The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

to halt plans to repatriate the Yemenis.

Repatriation negotiations

An article published in the ''

Yemen Post Yemen Postal Authority is the national postal authority of Yemen. It has the sole privilege of providing domestic and international postal services such as letter post, parcel post, money orders, savings bank, EMS, fax, philately etc. Ministry of ...

'' 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 AL, Al, Ål or al may stand for: Arts and entertainment Fictional characters * Al (''Aladdin'') or Aladdin, the main character in Disney's ''Aladdin'' media * Al (''EastEnders''), a minor character in the British soap opera * Al (''Fullmetal ...

'' reported that negotiations were advanced for the repatriation of approximately seventy Yemeni detainees. On June 7, 2008, ''

Yemen Online Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and sha ...

'' 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 A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified by a ...

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