No Chechens Among Guantanamo Bay Transferees

A detention center in the south Russian town of Mineralnye vody is the new home of seven Russian citizens. The seven, transferred on February 28 to the custody of the Russian government, had been held at Guantanamo Bay with other alleged terrorists captured in Afghanistan. Another Russian citizen is still being held at the U.S. naval base.

According to a March 1 report on the Gzt.ru website, the Russian citizens brought to Guantanamo from Afghanistan included former residents of Bashkiria, Kabardino-Balkaria, Tatarstan, and Tyumen oblast in Siberia. Despite the Russian government’s many charges of links between the Chechen separatist movement and al Qaeda, not one of these prisoners is a Chechen.