Massachusetts town welcomes detainees but Barack Obama misses deadline to close Guantánamo

Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | January 22, 2010 | Alex Spillius

[Schnucki]

President Barack Obama misses his own deadline for closing Guantánamo on Friday, amid difficulties in relocating inmates overseas and delays in putting dozens on trial.

But a university town in Massachusetts is doing its utmost to encourage his effort, having become the first in the country to pass a resolution welcoming detainees from the prison on the US naval base on Cuba.

Amherst remains a liberal hot spot in a state that until the shock election of Republican Scott Brown to succeed Edward Kennedy in the Senate was regarded as reliably Democratic.

Unlike Thomson, Illinois, where residents expect a jobs boom from seeing an unused, expensive prison receive detainees judged too dangerous to free, Amherst wants to welcome any former terror suspects who have been cleared for release into its general population of 34,874.

It has set its sights on two men in particular who are languishing in Guantánamo unable prevented from returning to their home countries by the likelihood of maltreatment.

Ravil Mingazov, a former ballet dancer in the Russian army, said he was persecuted by the authorities because of his conversion to Islam. He travelled to Afghanistan in 2001 before his arrest in Pakistan in early 2002.

Also handed over to the Americans in Pakistan was Ahmed Belbacha, a 40-year-old Algerian accountant. Though deemed not to be a threat by the Pentagon in 2005, he asked to stay in Guantánamo because he so feared torture by his country's security services. His lawyer has said he "would love to move to Amherst".

For that to happen, Congress would need to reconsider legislation preventing detainees with cleared status settling in the US, a decision that has contributed to Mr Obama missing his deadline. But with dozens of detainees probably moving into detention in Illinois, that could be changed.

Mingazov and

[gidget7]

Joy, (/sarc) These towns may very deserve what they get, BUT the surrounding towns and more specifically, the people who do not want this trash, do NOT! More reason to avoid both towns like they were under quarantine.

[massgopguy]

Call immediately placed to my daughter to inquire of this Professor Trashen(sic). My daughter’s brother was in Baghdad for a year.

[theDentist]

How would the Amherst news announce that one of the “detainees” beheaded 3 students in the name of Jihad? because I truly think that is going to happen.