JURIST - Paper Chase: Two more Uighur Guantanamo detainees agree to Palau transfer: report

[JURIST] Two more Uighur detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] have agreed to be transferred [AP report] to Palau, their lawyer told the Associated Press Saturday. Six of the remaining 13 Uighurs in Guantanamo Bay are now set to be transferred to the Pacific island. The detainees have been cleared for transfer since District Judge Ricardo Urbina ordered their release [JURIST report] from Guantanamo last October, but difficulties in finding an appropriate place to relocate them have impeded their release. The US Congress must approve the transfer, a process which will take approximately two weeks.

Four Uighurs agreed earlier this month to move to Palau [JURIST report]. At the close of its 2008 session, the US Supreme Court still had not ruled on an appeal [JURIST report] by the remaining detained Uighurs to gain their release. The appeal followed a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to stay the release [JURIST report] ordered by Urbina last October. Amid the legal wrangling over the Uighurs in the US, the Chinese government has repeatedly called for the detainees to be repatriated to China [JURIST report], a request the US has been reluctant to accommodate. Palau President Johnson Toribong offered to accept the Uighurs in June while four Uighurs were transferred to Bermuda [JURIST reports] that month.