U.S. sends four Uighur detainees to Bermuda

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four Chinese detainees from Guantanamo Bay arrived in Bermuda on Thursday after being freed by U.S. authorities in the Obama administration's latest move to close the controversial prison camp for terror suspects.

Their release took place the same day China repeated its demand for repatriation of all 17 members of the Uighur ethnic group held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba. China said it opposed any third country accepting the men.

Attorneys for the four Muslim men, who were held for seven years before being cleared by U.S. authorities as terrorism suspects, said they will take part in Bermuda's foreign guest worker program.

They arrived at Bermuda's international airport on a charter aircraft Thursday morning.

Speaking for the group, one of the freed detainees thanked the Bermudan government and people. "Growing up under communism," Abdul Nasser said, "we always dreamed of living in peace and working in free society like this one. Today you have let freedom ring."

The U.S. government has said it cannot return the Uighurs to China because they would face persecution there and it has been searching for months for a nation willing to accept them.

The administration said earlier this year it was considering releasing the Uighurs in the United States, but a political firestorm erupted, with many members of the U.S. Congress opposing such a transfer.

'BERMUDA SHOWS UNITED STATES WHAT JUSTICE IS'

"When political opportunists blocked justice in our own country, Bermuda has reminded her old friend America what justice is," said Sabin Willett, one of the American lawyers for the Uighurs.

The 17 Uighurs, who come from China's largely Muslim far west region of Xinjiang, had been captured by the U.S. government during the invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 hijacking attacks in the United Sates.

Their lawyers said the four men -- Huzaifa Parhat, Abdul Semet, Abdul Nasser and Jalal Jalaladiny -- never took hostile action against the United States and were sold to U.S. forces by bounty hunters.

The tropical Pacific island nation of Palau said on Wednesday it had agreed to temporarily take the Uighurs as a humanitarian gesture and to help President Barack Obama close the prison. The remaining 13 Uighurs could still go to Palau.

Germany's Spiegel Online reported that Palau Foreign Minister Sandra Pierantozzi said, "The final decision on whether the men want to come to us is their own decision. We will ask each one individually."

She was quoted as saying the United States had promised to pay $85,000 for each prisoner Palau accepts.

In one of his first acts in office in January, Obama ordered the closing within a year of the Guantanamo prison camp, which now holds 234 detainees following the departure of the four Uighurs.