RIYADH, April 3: The Saudi Arabian authorities have released 32 men repatriated from the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba last year, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

They were freed on bail after being questioned and undergoing rehabilitation sessions with clerics and other experts aimed at reintegrating them into Saudi society, the London-based Al-Hayat said.

The 32 were among Guantanamo inmates repatriated last year, it said.

Another 24 Saudis transferred from Guantanamo are still undergoing rehabilitation, the pan-Arab but Saudi-owned paper added.

The United States has repatriated a total of 117 Saudis from the detention camp which Washington set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks to house prisoners rounded up in Afghanistan and elsewhere as part of its global anti-terror campaign.

Thirteen Saudis are still held in the notorious prison, lawyer Kateb Shammari who represents detainees’ families told AFP. Three Saudi inmates held in Guantanamo allegedly committed suicide --- two in June 2006 and the third in May 2007.

After the 2006 deaths, US officials stirred worldwide outrage by describing the two reported Saudi suicides and that of a Yemeni as “an act of asymmetric warfare” and “a good PR move” by terror suspects.

Human rights activists in Saudi Arabia have challenged the suicide theory cited by US authorities.—AFP