Three Algerians have been transferred from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Bosnia, following a ruling by a federal judge that the Bush administration no longer had justification for keeping them locked up, the Pentagon announced Tuesday, dpa reported.
US District Judge Richard Leon ruled November 20 that five Algerians who lived in Bosnia cannot be held as "enemy combatants" because there was no evidence the detainees were involved in al- Qaeda or Taliban plots against the United States.
The three men who have been transferred are Bosnian citizens. The two other Algerians were not Bosnian citizens were not immediately being released.
They were arrested in Bosnia following the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on suspicion of plotting to blow up the US embassy in Sarajevo and were sent to Guantanamo in 2002. The US government also accused the men of planning to travel from Bosnia to Afghanistan before they were captured.
They have been held without charges being brought since their arrest.
There are about 250 detainees still held at Guantanamo. The Pentagon has identified 60 of them as eligible for release, but no countries have been willing to take them.
US president-elect Barack Obama has pledged to shut down the Guantanamo facility, but details of his plan are unclear.