Portugal to take some detainees

Portugal will accept two or three prisoners for resettlement from the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, state news agency Lusa quoted Foreign Minister Luis Amado as saying Saturday.

In December, Portugal became the first country to press publicly for a coordinated European Union resettlement plan for Guantanamo prisoners. The EU announced Monday that member nations were ready to help Washington and take detainees on a case-by-case basis.

Amado met with Daniel Fried, U.S. assistant secretary of State for European affairs in charge of resettling negotiations, on Friday. Amado said the status of the detainees to be resettled in Portugal would be defined by the Interior Ministry.

“We’ll receive two or three prisoners, but we now have to, internally, make the necessary procedures to go ahead with receiving them,” Lusa quoted Amado as saying.

Spain and Italy each have offered to take a few detainees.

The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, opened under President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, attracted domestic and international criticism of Washington for holding prisoners indefinitely, many without charge.

President Obama ordered the facility closed by January and the inmates to either face trial or be released.

Fried’s job is to find host countries for more than 200 detainees whom Washington has chosen not to prosecute. The government is facing opposition to releasing them in the United States.

The Obama administration struck agreements recently to resettle 17 ethnic Uighur detainees originally from China; four have been sent to Bermuda and the rest are to be resettled in the Pacific island nation of Palau.

Both governments have faced domestic criticism over the deals.