Four Uighur prisoners in Bermuda
A diplomatic dispute has resulted after an allege furtive transfer was made by Washington of four Chinese Muslim Uighurs prisoners from the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay to the British overseas territory of Bermuda.
Britain claims that the US government should have conferred it with them first before the fact.
The Uighur prisoners were among those entrusted to US forces in Afghanistan for incarceration in Guantanamo. Authorities came to find out later, however, that they were not “enemy combatants.”
It was also learned earlier that the Chinese government had been urging the US to turn over the prisoners to them hours before they were shipped to Bermuda. The US should “stop handing over terrorist suspects to any third country”, foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.
The US has been hesitant to hand over the Uighurs, recognized as terrorists in China, for fear that they will just end up being persecuted and killed.
Meanwhile, Britain is now assisting Bermuda in handling the security evaluation of the four prisoners. It was found out by the British foreign office that the men do not have travel documents that would allow them to enter to the UK.
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