WASHINGTON: The United States appointed a new special envoy on Tuesday to lead the Obama administration’s efforts to close the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Lee Wolosky, a lawyer who was the White House’s director of transnational threats under both presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, will be the third special envoy since President Barack Obama pledged to close the prison facility in the early days of his administration.

More than 100 detainees remain at the prison, including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 14 other “high value” detainees.

The post had been vacant since the previous special envoy for Guantanamo, Cliff Sloan, stepped down in December.

President Obama made closure of the controversial offshore prison a top priority when he took office in 2009, but the US Congress has blocked the transfer of its inmates to prisons inside the United States.

Once brought to the United States from Cuba, Guantanamo inmates will have the same legal rights as other prisoners do. Several US lawmakers have said that doing so would make it difficult to interrogate them.

The Obama administration, however, has been slowly sending prisoners either back to their home countries or to a handful of third countries willing to take them.

The prison at a US naval base in Cuba was opened in January 2002 to hold captured Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects picked up in Afghanistan and Pakistan after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2015

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