Six former Guantanamo inmates were still hospitalized Tuesday after being transferred to Uruguay, where they are due to be resettled, ending more than a decade in detention.
The Uruguayan defense minister initially said the men, who arrived in the South American country Sunday as refugees, would be released "in a matter of hours," but more than two days after their arrival officials said they were still undergoing medical exams at a military hospital.
Uruguay's leftist President Jose Mujica agreed to take in the inmates on "humanitarian grounds" in a bid to help his US counterpart Barack Obama fulfill his long-delayed promise to close the prison set up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Authorities have said that after leaving hospital the men will be taken to a house in an unidentified location in the interior of the country to begin adapting to Uruguay.
They have been kept under tight security, a measure Interior Minister Eduardo Bonomi said was for their own safety and would continue after they leave hospital.
"People often ask what measures are going to be taken from a security standpoint, assuming that these men are a security threat," he told local TV station Canal 20.
"The security measures we're going to take are for their own security."
The men -- four Syrians, a Palestinian and a Tunisian, all in their 30s and 40s -- were among the first detainees sent to Guantanamo in 2002.
Detained as part of the US "War on Terror" for alleged links to Al-Qaeda, they were never charged or tried.
They had been cleared for release, but the United States ruled they could not be sent to their home countries for security reasons.
- Handcuffed, blindfolded flight -
A lawyer for one of the men, Syrian national Jihad Diyab, said they had been kept handcuffed and blindfolded during their more than 12-hour flight on a US Air Force plane to Uruguay.
"It upsets me as an American citizen, but I'm afraid they take people out of Guantanamo in a way that is almost as degrading as the way they take them in," said the lawyer, Cori Crider, who is in Uruguay following the process.
"They handcuff them, they still have the blindfolds on and the ear defenders on, and there's not really a proper seat, so right up until the last moment I'm afraid the attitude of the Defense Department is not that these people are cleared to be free."
Crider said Monday that some of the men may need "intensive care."
Diyab, 43, had staged a hunger strike and requested a US court to order prison officials to stop force-feeding him.
Another of his lawyers, Alka Pradhan, has said her client can barely walk and mostly uses a wheelchair after "horrible treatment" in detention.
Lawyers said the men have been in touch with their families and may possibly bring them to Uruguay.
A barber gave them haircuts and trimmed their beards after arrival, hospital sources told AFP.
The men's resettlement comes as the United States released a damning Senate report Tuesday on the CIA's torture of Al-Qaeda suspects.
The hotly anticipated report found that so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" were far more brutal than acknowledged and did not produce useful intelligence.
Six former Guantanamo inmates were still hospitalized Tuesday after being transferred to Uruguay, where they are due to be resettled, ending more than a decade in detention.
The Uruguayan defense minister initially said the men, who arrived in the South American country Sunday as refugees, would be released “in a matter of hours,” but more than two days after their arrival officials said they were still undergoing medical exams at a military hospital.
Uruguay’s leftist President Jose Mujica agreed to take in the inmates on “humanitarian grounds” in a bid to help his US counterpart Barack Obama fulfill his long-delayed promise to close the prison set up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Authorities have said that after leaving hospital the men will be taken to a house in an unidentified location in the interior of the country to begin adapting to Uruguay.
They have been kept under tight security, a measure Interior Minister Eduardo Bonomi said was for their own safety and would continue after they leave hospital.
“People often ask what measures are going to be taken from a security standpoint, assuming that these men are a security threat,” he told local TV station Canal 20.
“The security measures we’re going to take are for their own security.”
The men — four Syrians, a Palestinian and a Tunisian, all in their 30s and 40s — were among the first detainees sent to Guantanamo in 2002.
Detained as part of the US “War on Terror” for alleged links to Al-Qaeda, they were never charged or tried.
They had been cleared for release, but the United States ruled they could not be sent to their home countries for security reasons.
– Handcuffed, blindfolded flight –
A lawyer for one of the men, Syrian national Jihad Diyab, said they had been kept handcuffed and blindfolded during their more than 12-hour flight on a US Air Force plane to Uruguay.
“It upsets me as an American citizen, but I’m afraid they take people out of Guantanamo in a way that is almost as degrading as the way they take them in,” said the lawyer, Cori Crider, who is in Uruguay following the process.
“They handcuff them, they still have the blindfolds on and the ear defenders on, and there’s not really a proper seat, so right up until the last moment I’m afraid the attitude of the Defense Department is not that these people are cleared to be free.”
Crider said Monday that some of the men may need “intensive care.”
Diyab, 43, had staged a hunger strike and requested a US court to order prison officials to stop force-feeding him.
Another of his lawyers, Alka Pradhan, has said her client can barely walk and mostly uses a wheelchair after “horrible treatment” in detention.
Lawyers said the men have been in touch with their families and may possibly bring them to Uruguay.
A barber gave them haircuts and trimmed their beards after arrival, hospital sources told AFP.
The men’s resettlement comes as the United States released a damning Senate report Tuesday on the CIA’s torture of Al-Qaeda suspects.
The hotly anticipated report found that so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” were far more brutal than acknowledged and did not produce useful intelligence.
