Supreme Court to rule on GITMO 2 detainees April 26

The Supreme Court has set April 26, 2017, to pronounce Judgment on the case involving the two ex-GITMO detainees whose stay in Ghana is being challenged by two Ghanaians.

The two ex-Guantanamo Bay detainees, Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby, arrived in Ghana on January 6,2016 to stay for two years.

They were in detention for close to 14 years after being picked up in Afghanistan and suspected to have been linked to the terrorist group, Al-Quaeda.

As part of fulfilling a promise by former US president, Barrack Obama, to close down the detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, detainees who posed no threat are being released to return to their countries.

But the two,  whose country’s are currently politically unstable to accept returnees, were given a third country option, which was to live in Ghana and they accepted it.

But many Ghanaians kicked against the move. The Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) and the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) urged the former Mahama government to return the two Yemeni terror suspects.

The seven-member panel Presided over by Justice William Atuguba deferred the matter to enable parties involved to file supplementary statements within 14 days.

The complainants, Margaret Bamful and Henry Nana Boakye, sued the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, together with the Minister of Interior, accusing President John Mahama of illegally bringing in the two former GITMO detainees, without recourse to the laws of the land.

The complainants are seeking among other reliefs, a declaration that on a true and proper interpretation of Article 75 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana, the former President acted unconstitutionally on the matter.