Ex-Guantanamo Detainee ‘Happy’ Ghana Accepted Him

The lawyer for the former Guantanamo Bay detainee, Mahmmoud Omar Mohammed Bin Atef, has said that his client is pleased to have been accepted by Ghana. Mohammed Bin Atef, was transferred to Ghana to be resettled following his 14-year incarceration at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Clarke told the New York Times that his client had grown become “frustrated” with his detention in the infamous prison for over a decade despite not being put before a court.
He explained that the situation had forced Bin Atef to ‘act out’ and say “stupid things a long time ago,” something his client had come to regret According to Clarke, Bin Atef’s demeanour had improved considerably describing the ex detainee as “friendly, nice guy” who was “positive and has a good attitude.”
Ghana’s Foreign Ministry announced in a statement signed by Hanna Tetteh that the country had agreed to provide humanitarian assistance to persons from Rwanda, Syria and Yemen following the crisis in the Middle East.
The United States confirmed the transfer of Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby to Ghana six years after it was approved and “a number of factors, including security issues” had been examined.
Reaction to the transfer of the two and the news that the country was prepared to accept refugees from Syria and Rwanda has been largely negative with several Ghanaians questioning the country’s ability to cater for these refugees in light of the current economic crisis.
The Ghana Refugee Board has sought to calm some of those fears by announcing that the upkeep of some Syrian Refugees in Ghana will come at no cost to the tax payer.
In response to suggestions that the Guantanamo detainees might pose a threat to the country’s security, the Foreign Minister Hanna Tetteh stated that aside from the information provided by the US, Ghana’s security agencies made their own checks to assess any possible threat before the transfer was approved.