U.S. Gives 1st List of Detainees
The U.S. government released on Wednesday the first list of detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba -- the most extensive accounting yet of the hundreds of people held there, most of them labeled enemy combatants.
In all, 558 people were named in the list provided by the Pentagon in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit by the Associated Press. They were among the first swept up in the U.S. global war on terrorism for suspected links to Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
The list is the first official roster of Guantanamo detainees who passed through the Combatant Status Review Tribunal process in 2004 and 2005 to determine whether they should be deemed “enemy combatants.”
Those named are from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and 39 other countries. Many have been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than four years. Some names are familiar, such as David Hicks, a Muslim from Australia charged with fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He is one of 10 detainees selected to be tried by a military tribunal.
Other detainees on the list include Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who reportedly was supposed to be the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks.
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