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| August 05, 2006 | Saturday | Rajab 9, 1427 |
Team to visit Guantanamo on 9th
ISLAMABAD, Aug 4: A three-member delegation will visit the US-controlled Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba on August 9-10 to secure release of 29 Pakistanis, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said on Friday.
The delegation will be headed by Director National Crisis Management Cell Col Imran and will have officials from the Foreign Office.
Inaugurating a readymade garments shop in Rawalpindi, the minister said the delegation would leave for Washington in two or three days from where it would be taken to the prison camp by the US authorities. “About 67 Pakistanis have already returned from the Guantanamo Bay”, the minister said.
A source in the interior ministry said the US authorities had not given security clearance for the delegation due to which its visit was delayed for a month.
The source said Pakistani authorities had not so far confirmed the exact number of Pakistani prisoners in the prison-cum-torture cell but the authorities assumed that they were about 29.
“Our foreign office is gathering information about the Pakistanis still in detention in the US jail,” the source said.
US President George W Bush had recently said that the US wanted to close down the prison camp which housed terror suspects and Al Qaeda activists.
Around 490 detainees from different countries are said to be still kept in the Guantanamo Bay which was opened in January 2002.
The US feared that the people in the US prison would again join international terrorism network or Al Qaeda, if they were released. But, on the other hand, there has been international criticism in respect of the conditions of the prisoners detained at the US camp without trial.
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