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More Saudis to be Freed from Guantanamo Soon | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat– More Saudi detainees in Guantanamo Bay are expected to be returned to Saudi Arabia, a senior source told Asharq al Awsat on Wednesday.

Kateb al Shamri, the legal representative of Saudi detainees at the US military base in Cuba, said a new group of detainees will be released in the coming weeks, but did not indicate how many.

In June, 14 detainees were sent home to Saudi Arabia, bring the total of Saudis returned to the Kingdom to 38. The release of detainees in part of an ongoing US effort to repatriate all Saudi detainees in Cuba, who have not been charged with terrorism related crimes.

Some 450 detainees remain in Guantanamo Bay.

Meanwhile, the National Association for Human Rights is seeking to appoint to US lawyers to represent two Saudi citizens in the US military base in Cuba who have appeared in front of a military tribunal.

Al Shamri has asked the committee defending Saudi detainees to appoint lawyers for Ghassan al Shirbi and Gebran al Qahtani, after the Supreme Court ruled that the Bush administration did not have the authority to try terrorism suspects by military tribunals.