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07 August 2007
State Department Deputy Spokesman, Tom Casey, Discusses British Request for Transfer of Five Guatanamo Detainees

The full transcript is available from the State Department website.

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QUESTION: Do you have anything that you could add on to what Sean said this morning about the British request for -- the request for the five Guantanamo inmates, and whether you welcomed their announcement?

MR. CASEY: Well, let me review a little bit of what he said this morning for folks that weren't there, and let's see if there's anything else to add. The British Government has been in discussions with the United States for some time about the fate of these five individuals. They are currently held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They are not British citizens, but as I understand it, they have some kind of residency status, or status that entitles them to residency in the United Kingdom. And what has happened now is that the British have sent us a letter formally requesting that we transfer these individuals over to U.S. custody -- or over to British custody, excuse me.

And this is something that's in keeping with our longstanding policy. We have worked over time to transfer individuals back to their home countries or back to other countries. We certainly don't, as the President said, want to be the world's jailer and we don't want to see Guantanamo Bay open indefinitely. But in order to be able to close it, you have to have a way of dealing with the people that are there, many of whom are extremely dangerous individuals, and those that will require some continued supervision and monitoring.

And one of the problems that we have had is that many countries have not had a great desire to either take back their nationals, or, as we saw with the case of the Uighurs, who were eventually found and were resettled in Albania, many third countries are not particularly anxious to step up to the plate and to take on some of these people.

So we're pleased to see the British move forward on this. We think it's in keeping, again, with our longstanding policies. We'll be evaluating their request to us and I'm sure we'll be having a number of discussions over the next few weeks to see what circumstances and how we can effect this transfer. And this is, again, in keeping with how we've handled transfers to other countries.

I think if you know there are -- you can check with the Department of Defense -- but I believe there have been about 375 prisoners approximately transferred from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba back, largely, to their home countries. That includes a number of countries in the Middle East as well as those in Europe. And certainly, we're going to continue that process.

I believe we also know that a little while ago we signed an agreement with the Government of Afghanistan, part of which will allow us to help them build the kind of prison that will allow them to hold, in the longer term, some of the detainees that are of Afghan nationality that do need to be -- continued supervision and incarceration. And we're in the process of helping them construct the kind of facilities that are necessary to hold these very dangerous people, with the idea that those Afghan detainees that are currently at Guantanamo Bay will eventually be transferred back into the custody of the Afghan Government.

So this is something that we are working on not only with Great Britain but with a wide variety of countries. And certainly, we'd like to see this process continue so that we can transfer out those that are eligible to do so and that we can ultimately have a resolution to something that's been an issue on the table for a long time.

QUESTION: You said that this was something that's been in discussion for some time. Did this -- did those discussions begin under Prime Minister Blair or is this -- since the --

MR. CASEY: Well, I know there have been discussions. We have, in the past, transferred back British nationals, British citizens back to Great Britain. I believe that was in 2004, I think.

But these individuals, I think, fell into a somewhat different category because they aren't British citizens. I know there have been on and off discussions about them between the UK and the United States that predate the arrival into power of this particular government. But obviously, Prime Minister Brown and his team have made the decision at this point to move forward with a formal request which had not occurred previous to this date.

QUESTION: All right. But -- so the Blair government never stated any intention, formal or otherwise --

MR. CASEY: Well, I don't want to characterize the discussions. We had a number of discussions over time on this issue. What I can say is this the first time that we have received a formal request for their transfer. And I'd leave it to the British Government to talk about any of their internal deliberations on this.

QUESTION: Procedurally -- I would imagine that procedurally, you need to have that before you can -- you'd have a formal request. It can't just be something that someone mentions --

MR. CASEY: Yeah. I think mentioning --

QUESTION: -- at Camp David or some place --

MR. CASEY: -- mentioning in passing usually doesn't count on something like this. And again, there are going to have to be follow-up discussions to work out the formal mechanisms for transfer and that's something that -- I think you know John Bellinger, our legal advisor, has had a hand in from time to time. Pierre Prosper and some of his successors in the special war crimes office have done so as well. And certainly, Department of Defense interests and other parts of the U.S. Government all come into play.

It ultimately is a U.S. Government decision whether and under what circumstances to actually conduct these transfer agreements. So they are fairly complicated and they do take a reasonable amount of time to do.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Tom, any idea how many of these British inmates in the Guantanamo Bay prison?

MR. CASEY: Well, there were a number of British citizens that were transferred back, as I said, a couple years ago. There are these five individuals who are -- I don't want to say British residents. I'm not sure what the term of art is in the UK system and I'll leave it to them to discuss that exact phrasing or wording, but they have the right to live or reside in the United Kingdom under whatever status.

And so therefore, the British have decided to make this request. I'm not sure whether there are -- I don't believe there are any other British -- I know there are no British citizens at Guantanamo Bay at this point. Whether there are any other individuals that might have some other claim to UK residency, that, I honestly don't know. That might be something you'd want to check with the Pentagon or, frankly, check with the British Government. I don't know if they think there's anybody outside of these five that would otherwise qualify or have some claim to British residency status.

QUESTION: Plus Sean said this morning that the U.S. is prepared to repatriate if there's any request from -- return for more of these inmates?

MR. CASEY: Oh, well, I think what he was referring to there is part of the point I was making earlier, which is that we certainly don't want to hold these people forever. There are some that will go through a trial procedure, including some of those that were transferred in and who had direct responsibility or direct linkages to 9/11, for example, and there's a military tribunal, military commission procedure that's in place and that we'll be moving forward for some of those individuals.

But there are many others who were there who, eventually, we want to see returned, you know, to their country of origin or to a third country that would be willing to take them. And so whether it's the UK or any other nation, as the Albanians did with the Uighurs, if there is a desire on any nation's part to work with us to work out arrangements for handling or transferring some of these individuals, ultimately, that's going to contribute to the long range goal that the President's articulated, is -- of closing Guantanamo Bay.

Yeah, Nina.

QUESTION: Can I just ask a question on this? There's -- just to clarify, is this the first request of this kind from the UK to transfer individuals that aren't regarded as citizens, just residents? Is this the first kind of request?

MR. CASEY: Yeah. Again, the UK citizens that were in detention at Guantanamo Bay were, as I understand it, all transferred back to Great Britain a couple of years ago. This request is the first that we've received from them formally to transfer individuals who are not citizens, but fall into this other residency status category.

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