MOSCOW, June 18 (RAPSI) – The US Government released the names of the prisoners being held indefinitely at the Guantanamo Bay detention center to The Miami Herald, which had requested the data under the Freedom of Information Act, the news agency reported Monday.
Copies of the list were reportedly sent to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees as well.
According to the list, there are 166 inmates in the prison, including 46 indefinite detainees who are allegedly “too dangerous to transfer but who cannot be tried in a court of law,” The Miami Herald reports.
According to the list, the indefinite detainees are 26 Yemenis, 12 Afghans, 3 Saudis, 2 Kuwaitis, 2 Libyans, a Kenyan, a Moroccan and a Somali.
US President Barrack Obama made the closure of Guantanamo Bay central to his presidential election campaign in 2008. Obama's first-ever executive order was aimed at closing the prison facility, but so far little has come of these initiatives due largely to the legal grey area surrounding the transfer of its detainees.
Russia has stepped up its criticism of the prison following the publication of its so-called “Guantanamo List.” The blacklist of US officials banned from entering Russia was published in April in response to a similar US travel ban on Russian officials suspected of human rights violations, known as the Magnitsky List.