Search Results - Said, Salim 1943-

List of Saudi detainees at Guantanamo Bay

A total of 134 Saudi citizens have been held in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps at its naval base in Cuba since January 2002. Most had been swept up in Afghanistan following the US invasion in the fall of 2001, and they were classified by the US government as enemy combatants.

In addition, a United States citizen, Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was born in Louisiana but moved as a child with his parents to Saudi Arabia, where he also had citizenship, was initially held there. As an American citizen, he was transferred to a military prison brig on the mainland of the United States. His challenge to his detention, without being informed of charges or brought to trial, was a case that reached the United States Supreme Court. In ''Hamdi v. Rumsfeld'' (2004), the Supreme Court ruled that detainees who are U.S. citizens must have the rights of due process, and the ability to challenge their enemy combatant status before an impartial authority. After this decision, the government made a deal with Hamdi. After he agreed to renounce his US citizenship and observe travel restrictions, in October 2004 Hamdi was deported to Saudi Arabia. He has returned to his family.

Following the deaths of two Saudi citizens in custody on June 10, 2006, and another on May 30, 2007, which the Department of Defense claimed were due to suicides, the Saudi government put pressure on the United States to release its citizens. Nearly 100 were returned to Saudi Arabia from June 2006 through 2007.

Two Saudi citizens are believed to still be held at the detention camp as of January 2024. Provided by Wikipedia