White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters today that the U.S. will not transfer anymore Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen for the time being, following an attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day.
“We are not going to make decisions about transfers to a country like Yemen that they’re not capable of handling. And I think that, while we remain committed to closing the facility, the determination has been made that right now any additional transfers to Yemen is not a good idea,” Gibbs said.
Administration officials have anonymously said the U.S. would stop sending detainees to the unstable country. From the New York Times:
But a senior administration official said Thursday that Mr. Obama’s interagency team had already decided quietly several weeks ago that the security situation in Yemen was too volatile to transfer any more detainees beyond six who were sent home in December. The government concluded it had to release those six because it was about to lose habeas corpus hearings in court that would order them freed.
And an official told TPMDC that the White House has worked with the government of Yemen to make sure all appropriate security measures are taken when detainees are transferred there. Obama “will not release any detainee who would endanger the American people,” the official said.
