Gitmo alums unwelcome

last updated 8 January 2015

London

Despite demanding that the U.S. close the Guantánamo Bay prison camp immediately, the British government refuses to accept custody of British residents detained there, The Washington Post reported this week. Nine British citizens held as detainees were repatriated in 2004. U.S. officials now say they are willing to release an additional 10 detainees who had been longtime British residents, though not citizens, before their arrests. But the British government refuses to take them in. “They are adamant,” said George Brent Mickum IV, a lawyer for some of the British residents. “They do not want these guys back.” In many cases, the U.S. can’t return detainees to their countries of origin because U.S. law bars extradition to countries that practice torture.