from Gitmo to Yemen
Other major difficulties have emerged in Washington’s negotiations with the government of Yemen, which has about 105 citizens at Guantánamo. (The Pentagon has refused to make public the nationalities of all of the Guantánamo prisoners.)
The State Department report cited the use of sleep deprivation, threats of sexual assault and other abuses by Yemeni state-security agents. Despite efforts by the Yemeni Interior Ministry to curb torture in its prisons, the department said, there were also reports that ministry agents “routinely” used of torture to extract confessions from criminal defendants.
Even so, some American officials said a more immediate obstacle to the possible transfer of Guantánamo prisoners was a basic lack of security in Yemeni prisons. The most vivid example, they said, was the escape on Feb. 3 of 23 men, including some important operatives of Al Qaeda, from a high-security prison run by the country’s intelligence service in the capital, Sana. (Eight have surrendered or been recaptured.)
Barely a month later, Yemeni security officials announced that they had thwarted two more escape attempts involving a dozen Qaeda operatives at other prisons.
A spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington, Mohammed al-Basha, said his government was eager to have Yemeni detainees repatriated and was “fully committed” to international laws governing their treatment.
The regime thwarted the escape attempt at another prison based on a tip, they said, from one of the escapees from the first group, thereby demonstrating that the two groups of imprisoned al-Qaeda were in touch with each other or at least aware of escape plans.
They are still negotiating, since early February, with the remaining 15 escapees.
