Alwaght- The US government has transferred a number of prisoners form the controversial military facility in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to the Saudi Arabia.
The inmates include suspects who have been kept in illegal conditions for years without access to fair trial and legal protections. The outgoing US president, Barak Obama had made it one of his main promises during his presidential campaign to close the prison over inhumane conditions and torture reports but failed to do so after eight years in the White House.
Now the US government is relocating the prisoners to its allies that have a long history of abusing human rights and torturing prisoners.
Salem Ahmad Hadi Bin Kanad, Muhammed Rajab Sadiq Abu Ghanim, Abdallah Yahya Yusif Al-Shibli and Muhammad Ali Abdallah Muhammad Bwazir have been transferred to Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon said in a statement.
Al-Shibli and Bwazir were unanimously approved for transfer by an interagency task force. Kanad and Ghanim were transferred on the recommendation of six departments and agencies comprising a periodic review board.
The move is likely to irk President-elect Donald Trump who has called on the Obama administration to halt detainee transfers.
Trump has spoken favorably of the prison and said he would begin sending new inmates to the site that became a lightning rod for controversy under former President George W. Bush.
With Thursday's transfers, 55 inmates remain at Gitmo. Obama inherited a Gitmo population tallying 242 inmates when he assumed office in 2009. He reportedly wants to transfer an additional 13 or 14 inmates before he leaves office 20 January.
