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Obama Resettled Ex-Gitmo Prisoners, Now Disappeared

<div>President&nbsp&semi;Barack&nbsp&semi;Obama&&num;8217&semi;s mission to close the Guant&aacute&semi;namo Bay prison has ultimately led to many of the prisoners being misplaced&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>The U&period;S&period; military prison&comma; known as Gitmo or GTMO&comma; holds inmates in Cuba that have been detained indefinitely without trial&period; The horrific conditions of the camp and how poorly the prisoners are treated has attracted the attention of human rights groups like Amnesty International&period;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>Obama reduced the number of&nbsp&semi;prisoners from 242 to 41 when he was in office and moved 150 of the &&num;8220&semi;lower-risk&&num;8221&semi; prisoners to unstable locations around the world&period;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>Almost two dozen of these prisoners have vanished since they were transferred to a rehabilitation program by the United Arab Emirates&period;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Interviews with attorneys for 19 of the former detainees found that few if any of the 23 men transferred to the UAE between 2015 and 2017 have been released&comma; despite what attorneys said were informal assurances that they would be out within about a year&comma;&&num;8221&semi; writes&nbsp&semi;<em>The Washington Post&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Senegal&comma; a country that took in some of the prisoners&comma; deported two of them to &ldquo&semi;their chaotic birth country of Libya&&num;8221&semi; where they &ldquo&semi;fell into the hands of a hard-line militia leader who has been accused of prisoner abuse&&num;8221&semi; and then &&num;8220&semi;vanished&period;&&num;8221&semi;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;The case sets a worrisome precedent&comma; current and former officials said&period; The danger&comma; they say&comma; is that other countries may follow Senegal in forcibly moving more of the nearly 150 Obama-era resettled former detainees home to unstable places where they risk being killed &mdash&semi; or could end up becoming threats themselves&comma;&&num;8221&semi; writes&nbsp&semi;<em>The&nbsp&semi;New York Times&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The&nbsp&semi;<em>NYT<&sol;em>&nbsp&semi;tries to blame the Trump administration for the misplacement of the prisoners&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;The breakdown of the Senegal resettlement also appears to be at least partly a consequence of the disorganization that has afflicted the State Department since Mr&period; Trump took office&period; The Obama administration set up a high-level&comma; centralized office charged with monitoring former detainees indefinitely and dealing with any problems&period; But Rex W&period; Tillerson&comma; Mr&period; Trump&rsquo&semi;s first secretary of state&comma; shuttered it&comma; so that function was added to the long list of things individual embassies are supposed to track&period;&&num;8221&semi; writes the&nbsp&semi;<em>NYT&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<div>According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence &lpar;ODNI&comma;&rpar;&nbsp&semi;30 percent of the released Gitmo detainees were suspected or confirmed terrorists&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>&NewLine;<div>&NewLine;<div>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>Trump has taken a stricter approach to dealing with these prisoners&comma; whom he has called &ldquo&semi;extremely dangerous people&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>He has vowed to keep the prison open and has halted the resettlement of the detainees and instead will be making decisions to release a prisoners &ldquo&semi;on a case-by-case basis&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p><strong>Author&&num;8217&semi;s note&colon;<&sol;strong>&nbsp&semi;Lets&nbsp&semi;not forget&nbsp&semi;that&nbsp&semi;these are terrorists and criminals&period; Prisoners are sent to Gitmo indefinitely for a reason&period; They will kill again if they have the opportunity&period; Some of missing detainees may have been captured and held as prisoners elsewhere&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s more likely that they rejoined their terrorist organizations&period; How is this the Trump administration&&num;8217&semi;s fault&quest; Personally&comma; I think we should focus on the Gitmo prison conditions&comma; not on resettling detainees so they can live a better-prisoned life elsewhere&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;

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