Oman to expel dozens of ex-Guantánamo detainees (2024)

But now, the nation that human rights attorneys had hailed as the “gold standard” in the rehabilitation of Muslim men swept up in America’s “war on terror” is casting them aside, the men and advocates said. In January, Omani officials began calling the men into meetings where they explained that, come July, they would be stripped of their benefits and legal residency and would have to return to Yemen.

“It was a huge shock for all of us,” said one of the men, Husam, who spoke on the condition that his real name not be used because he said the government had threatened the men against speaking to the media. For years, Oman had been “so supportive, so helpful. They told us: ‘You are here to stay. This is your home,’” said Husam, a middle-aged father of three young children. But now, said Husam, “they said, ‘Your time is finished and you have to leave.’”

Oman’s move comes as another transfer of Guantánamo detainees hangs in the balance. Last fall, the Biden administration had planned to send 11 more Yemenis to Oman, a plan that was first reported by NBC News on Monday. But the administration, at the urging of members of Congress, paused the transfer after the outbreak of war in Gaza, following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, U.S. officials said.

Administration officials said they still hope the transfer will occur. It is unclear whether Oman’s threatened expulsion of the original group of 28 Yemenis resettled there is connected to the government’s agreement to accept the new group. But U.S. officials said that Oman’s obligations to provide for the first group of ex-detainees had long since expired, and that there was no requirement that the sultanate provide the men with permanent residency.

“In some ways, you could say they’re making room,” said one U.S. official.

The government of Oman did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but legal advocates for the Yemenis, as well as U.S. government officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations, confirmed the reports that Oman has decided to end its support for the former detainees.

Of the 780 men once detained at Guantánamo, just 30 remain, about half of whom were long ago approved for transfer by a panel of officials from the top U.S. national security agencies. But the prison’s closure, a policy goal of the Biden administration — just as it was for the Obama administration — hinges in large part on the success of secretive deals forged with foreign governments, like Oman, to accept the former detainees and provide security guarantees for them.

Congress has barred the government from transferring Guantánamo detainees to the U.S. mainland and blocked repatriation to certain war-ravaged countries, such as Yemen, because they are seen as security risks.

While the vast majority of the men held at Guantánamo never faced charges, former detainees and their attorneys say that because of torture and brutal treatment, nearly all now struggle with severe physical and psychological trauma, requiring special care — further complicating transfer efforts.

The 28 Yemenis transferred to Oman by the Obama administration arrived between 2015 and 2017, and the monarchy’s support program quickly became the model example of rehabilitation and humane treatment of former Guantánamo detainees abroad.

Lee Wolosky, the State Department’s special envoy for Guantánamo closure during the last two years of the Obama administration, who negotiated the first round of transfers, praised Oman’s support for the men, but acknowledged that Oman’s decision to end the program was its to make.

“The nonrenewal of the former detainees’ residence permits does not violate any agreement or understanding made with the United States at the time of transfer,” said Wolosky, who now works in private legal practice. But Wolosky also suggested that expulsion would be unfair. “For approximately a decade, Oman has rehabilitated and supported these men, affording them the opportunity to have families, rebuild their lives and live in peace. They have never been charged with a crime and should be allowed to live out their lives as they see fit.”

Oman also accepted two Afghan detainees, who, at their request, were recently allowed to return to Afghanistan, now under the control of the Taliban. Some of the Yemenis had previously asked Omani authorities if they could visit Yemen, but were denied, said Mansoor Adayfi, another Yemeni, now resettled in Serbia, who serves as the Guantánamo program coordinator for CAGE International, a nonprofit that advocates for current and former detainees.

The potential expulsion of the Yemenis from Oman comes amid a resurgence of conflict in the Middle East, including in Yemen, where years of civil war has led to a nationwide humanitarian crisis and persistent violence. U.S. officials said they cannot send the remaining Yemeni detainees who have been cleared for transfer back to Yemen because of security concerns arising from the ongoing conflict.

“So it’s particularly ironic for the U.S. to not try to stop the transfers [of the earlier resettled group] to Yemen, after the U.S. transferred them to Oman, in what they thought would be a safe place for them,” said Daphne Eviatar, director of the security with human rights program at Amnesty International USA.

A State Department spokesman declined to discuss Oman’s decision-making, referring The Post to the government of Oman “for information related to the movement of former Guantanamo detainees.”

“In general, the United States government has never had an expectation that former Guantanamo detainees would indefinitely remain in receiving countries,” Vincent M. Picard, a spokesman for the department’s counterterrorism division, said in a statement Wednesday.

“Oman is an excellent partner and fulfilled all aspects of the humane treatment and security assurances we agreed to for the detainees they have received. They have provided rehabilitation services and subsidies to former detainees for longer than required,” Picard said.

But the policy shift in Oman, a wealthy oil state on the Arabian Peninsula that has served at times as a go-between for the United States and Iran, also highlights the precariousness of the Biden administration’s diplomacy in the Middle East, where U.S. officials have leaned heavily on the help of Arab Gulf states in their ongoing efforts to broker a cease-fire deal and hostage release between Israel and Hamas. Brett McGurk, Biden’s coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, met in Oman last week with Iranian diplomat Ali Bagheri Kani, now acting foreign minister.

In recent months, U.S. and allied forces have carried out strikes against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militant group, responding to missile and drone attacks on ships traversing the Red Sea near Yemen’s coast. The Houthis, who maintain offices in Oman and who control vast swaths of Yemen, have also in recent years attacked and threatened Yemenis whom they suspect of belonging to al-Qaeda — including former Guantánamo detainees — leaving Husam and the other former detainees fearful of what might happen to them if they return.

“I am from a place that is controlled by the Houthis, who have gone from time to time to talk to my family about me,” said Husam. “They asked where I am, if I communicate with them. My family told me, ‘Don’t come back.’”

Human rights advocates have long assailed what they see as continued failures by multiple U.S. administrations to provide redress and long-term stability to the hundreds of men it subjected to torture and detention without due process over the two decades following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“There’s no statute of limitations on torture, and the U.S. debts on its torture of these men are not spent,” said Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, who last year became the first U.N. official to be granted extensive access to Guantánamo’s facilities and inmates, and who also interviewed former detainees. “And so, it worries me profoundly that these men are not a priority for the administration.”

Ní Aoláin, who served as the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, wrote in a report last year that she was “deeply concerned” about the U.S. commitment to upholding the international legal principle of “non-refoulement,” which prohibits the transfer of a prisoner to another country where they would face serious harm.

Oman has provided the former detainees a rare level of dignity and care, unseen in many of the dozens of other countries that have accepted the United States’ former prisoners, Ní Aoláin and other international legal experts said.

If Oman needs support — “whether it’s financial or political” — to avoid expelling the 28 Yemeni men and their families to face dangerous circ*mstances, “the United States should support and enable Oman” to do so, at least until Yemen is safe enough to move them to, Ní Aoláin said. “Certainly right now, Yemen is not a safe place to send torture victim-survivors.”