UK, Australian Guantanamo Inmates to Be Freed

[Neil D]

By Jeremy Laurence

LONDON (Reuters) - Four remaining Britons and an Australian held at Guantanamo Bay will be released soon, officials and politicians said Tuesday, amid reports the number of prisoners at the U.S. base will be radically reduced.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told parliament the Americans had agreed to free the four Britons while Australia's Attorney General Philip Ruddock said Australian Mamdouh Habib was being sent home at Canberra's request.

"The U.S. government has now agreed to the return of all four men to the United Kingdom," Straw said. "(They) will be returned in the next few weeks."

A Pentagon spokesman did not confirm the releases, saying only: "We're regularly in negotiations with other countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia, about transferring detainees from Guantanamo."

The United States holds about 550 non-U.S. citizens at Guantanamo. Only four have been charged.

Britain's Financial Times reported this week that the release was part of a plan to radically reduce the number of prisoners held at the base in Cuba.

It quoted a U.S. defense official as saying that an increase in the number of transfers to an unspecified number of the 19 countries whose nationals are being held at Guantanamo Bay was part of a plan to create a permanent prison at the base.

The prison, to be called Camp Six, would have space for up to 200 detainees whom the US does not want to see released, the paper said.

[:"blue"] So, the real reason these prisoners are to be released is so that we can fill it with more prisoners.... Am I being paranoid or is this a permanant prison?? Ah, I am just being paranoid, right?[/]

This is the full story

[Rosie]

It says permanent prison.

Of course it would need to be just as permanent as the "war on terror" will be .