U.S. officials reluctantly agreed to return five terrorism suspects to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last year as part of a deal involving Britain, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
Citing senior American and British officials, all who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Times reported the arrangement called for Saudi officials to release five Britons and two others convicted of guerrilla attacks in Saudi Arabia. British diplomats believed they were tortured by Saudi security officers into confessing falsely.
Officials involved in the plan told the Times the transfer of the Saudis from Guantanamo was initially resisted by the Pentagon, the CIA and the Justice Department.
The agencies questioned whether some detainees were too dangerous to send back and whether Saudi promises to keep the men imprisoned could be trusted.
Saying that moving detainees “who posed a threat was a new endeavor,” one senior U.S. official who backed the plan maintained it was done cautiously. “It was the first time we were doing this, and people did not want to do it,” the newspaper quoted the official as saying.
The Saudi prisoners were transferred to Riyadh, the capital, in May 2003. The five Britons and two others were freed in August.
While there was no indication at the time the releases were related, the Times quoted a U.S. official with knowledge of the negotiations as saying, “There is a link,” adding, “This was two courses that converged and had a mutual attractiveness to them.”
A spokesman for the National Security Council denied on Friday the Saudi detainees were transferred in exchange for the British prisoners, the newspaper reported. “There is no recollection here of any linkage between these two actions,” said Sean McCormick, who described the return of the Saudis as “part of the normal policy of transferring detainees from Guantanamo for prosecution or continued detention.”
But U.S. officials involved in the case said it was highly unusual, and that the detainees’ backgrounds raised greater concerns than those of others. Some officials said the case showed how factors beyond security and intelligence could influence prisoner releases, the Times said.
The report said Saudi officials had given contradictory accounts of the current whereabouts of the five men, saying at first that one or two had been released, then denying any had been freed. The officials also gave contradictory accounts of their legal status, first saying they had been tried and convicted but later saying prosecutions were pending.
Officials would not identify the five or describe in detail the evidence on which they had been held at Guantanamo. One U.S. official said two of the detainees had attended al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan.
