Sudanese to be freed from US Guantanamo base

KHARTOUM, Feb 15 (AFP) — Sudanese and US officials were meeting at the US Navy base in Guantanamo to discuss the release of Sudanese nationals detained there, Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail said in remarks published here Sunday.

Ismail, quoted by the official SUNA news agency, said the Sudanese delegation in Guantanamo expects two Sudanese to be freed shortly and others to be released before it ends its mission to the base in Cuba.

No information was available here on the number of the Sudanese in the US detention centre nor on when, how or where they were arrested. US officials have been holding hundreds of alleged Islamic militants there as part of their war on terror.

Ismail said the Sudanese embassy in London was also following up the case of a Sudanese detained there last month for alleged possession of live ammunition on arrival at Heathrow airport from US Dulles airport in Washington.

Ismail was quoted as saying “we are keen to have” Alwasila Alhibr Wasila freed by the British legal authorities “as we are confident of his innocence.”

Last month Ismail said his government was also seeking the release of an unspecified number of Sudanese held in US-occupied Iraq, but there was no further information on the case.

He also said at the same time that three Sudanese detained in Israeli prisons were to have been released as part of a prisoner swap that occurred at the end of last month between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia.