GITMO 2 not terrorists – Parliament clears

The two Yemeni nationals who were held in Guantanamo Bay were not terrorists, contrary to claims by the then opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

On Wednesday, January 6, 2016, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Regional Integration announced that Ghana has accepted a plea from the International Criminal Tribunal to provide shelter for two cleared terrorist suspects of Yemeni origin who were detained in Guantanamo Bay prison by US authorities.

The two were Khalid Mohammed Salih al-Dhuby and Mahmmoud Omar Mohammed Bin Atef.

The two Gitmo detainees were unable to “return to Yemen at the moment and we have indicated our readiness to accept them for a period of two years after which they may leave the country”, the Foreign Affairs Ministry in the erstwhile Mahama administration said.

Following the announcement, a cross section of the Ghanaian populace criticized the government for putting the country in danger, vis a vis the then Mahama government’s decision to accept into the country, the two Yemeni nationals, mostly referred to as terrorists.

Some even accused the government of taking some huge amount of money in exchange of the two Yemeni nationals, whom they argued, posed a security threat to the country.

But Parliament on Tuesday, while giving a formal approval to the stay of the two in the country said, it is a certainty that no adverse findings were made linking the two to any terrorists group ahead of the Government of Ghana and the US government’s talks in relation to the Yemeni nationals.



This follows the adoption of the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee on the request for ratification on the agreement between the Government of Ghana and the Government of the United States of America on the resettlement in Ghana of the two former detainees.