Algeria says ex-Guantanamo detainees to stand trial “to close case”: report

Two Algerian detainees from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay who had been transferred to their home country will face trial “to close the case for good,” head of the country's official rights watchdog said on Friday.

• “The two detainees, Hasan Zemiri and Adil Hadi al-Jazairi Bin Hamlili, will face trial soon after arriving in Algeria,” Farouk Ksentini, head of the National Consultative Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, told al-Arabiya.net.

  Earlier in the day, the U.S. Justice Department said that the pair have been transferred from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to the custody and control of the Algerian government.

  “The United States coordinated with the government of Algeria to ensure the transfers took place under appropriate security measures,” the department said in a statement.

  Ksentini welcomed the move, considering it as a step towards shutting down the notorious facility, as promised by U.S. President Barack Obama.

  However, he said the pair will face trial in Algeria in order to “close the case for good before a ruling is to determine whether to release them or send them back to jail in Algeria.”

  But, he also expected that the ex-Guantamao detainees will be temporarily released in parallel with the launching of the proposed trial.

  “The remaining 12 Algerian detainees might opt not to return to Algeria…after an ex-detainee stood trial recently,” he said, referring to Ahmad Belbasha who was handed a 20-year jail term by an Algerian court in absentia. Belbasha has already declined to return to the North African country in fear that he might be ” tortured”.

  The U.S. announcement came on the eve of the deadline for the facility’s closure set by President Barack Obama after he was sworn in to the presidency.

  With the repatriation of the two Algerians, there are still 196 detainees left at the prison, meaning the president would probably miss his target date.

  On Friday also, Republicans in Congress unveiled a legislation aiming to block the transfer of Guantanamo detainees.

  The bill requires that a detainee could only be transferred to a country that is not identified as sponsor of terror, has control over its territory and does not tolerate safe havens for extremists like al-Qaida.

  Apart from Republicans’ opposition, Obama’s policy on Guantanamo meets continued public resistance.