Pentagon Releases 10 Saudi Detainees

Prisoners Held at Guantanamo Bay Are Returned Home

Ten Saudi detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison have been released to their home country, Pentagon officials announced Friday, reducing the number of Saudi nationals still held as enemy combatants to approximately a dozen.

Washington has returned dozens of men over the past year to Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich kingdom where al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was born and where public anger over the treatment of its citizens at Guantanamo has run high.

Interior Minister Prince Nayef told the official Saudi Press Agency yesterday that efforts were underway to bring home the remaining Saudis, and that U.S. authorities were cooperating.

Fahd al-Shamri, a Riyadh-based lawyer representing families of Saudis held at Guantanamo, called for the release of those still held.

"We hope the next batch will be the last so that we turn this bleak page and bring to an end the suffering of the families of these detainees," he said in a statement.

Those repatriated to Saudi Arabia have received financial help from the government to rebuild their lives, and many have been allowed to go free.

About 136 of the 759 people detained at Guantanamo since 2002 have been Saudi, the second-largest group after Afghans. The vast majority have been repatriated, even though the Pentagon still regards the vast majority as a terrorist threat.

The United States agreed to return the men with the understanding that Saudi Arabia will mitigate that risk, partly through a state program to reintegrate former detainees into civilian life, said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Defense Department spokesman.

The Pentagon did not name the men who were released.

If Saudi officials follow past practice, they would probably identify them over the weekend on official government Web sites.

The transfer reduces the number of captives at Guantanamo to about 275, a decline of nearly one-third in the past year.