August 7, 2003	Thursday	Jumadi-us-Sani 8, 1424

SANAA, Aug 6: Yemen on Wednesday expressed its rejection of the planned trial by a US military commission of nationals held in the US base of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners from the Afghan war.

“Yemen refuses the trial of its nationals held in Guantanamo by a US military court,” Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al Qurbi said in a statement published by the official weekly, Al Wahda.

“Like many countries in the world, Yemen is putting pressure on the United States and asking it to hand over these Yemenis accused of terrorism,” Qurbi added.

Yemen reported in December that 83 of its nationals were being held in Guantanamo.

The US military is holding some 680 people from 40 countries at the naval base, most of them suspected militants of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network or the former Taliban regime which hosted its bases in Afghanistan.

The indefinite detentions have been a source of controversy in part because Washington regards the captives as enemy combatants who can be held without trial for as long as it is engaged in a war on Islamic militancy. —AFP