4 Chinese Gitmo Detainees Freed to Bermuda

Beijing opposes sending other Muslim inmates to Palau

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 11, 2009 8:45 AM CDT

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4 Chinese Gitmo Detainees Freed to Bermuda — This Jan. 27, 2009 file photo shows demonstrators protesting in front of the White House in Washington, calling for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay facility. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Four Chinese Muslims inmates from Guantanamo have been released in Bermuda in the first successful US resettlement of Uighurs since 2006, the AP reports. The disposition of 13 others is unclear, according to the Miami Herald, but Palau has offered to accept them, a move China opposes. Beijing has called them “terrorist suspects” and demanded their return. Palau’s president classifies them as “international vagabonds” who deserve a fresh start.

China has called on the US to “stop handing over terrorist suspects to any third country, so as to expatriate them to China at an early date.” But President Johnson Toribiong of Palau, which doesn’t recognize China, said his country wasn’t too concerned with Beijing’s reaction. “We understand these 17 people are not terrorists but separatists from their national government,” he said. “Palau's people are always on the side of the US government.”
(More China stories.)

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