Johnson Toribiong

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6 Gitmo Uighurs Arrive in Palau

Latest transfers trade prison for ocean views

(Newser) - Six Chinese Muslims newly released from Guantanamo Bay traded life behind bars today for rooms with ocean view in the tiny Pacific nation of Palau. The Uighurs, in US custody since 2001, were met at the airport in the middle of the night by President Johnson Toribiong and taken to...

Five Gitmo Uighurs to Palau: Thanks, but No Thanks

(Newser) - Palau’s president Johnson Toribiong today said five of the 13 Uighurs held at Guantanamo Bay and set to be resettled in his country don't want to go, AFP reports. “A handful may not come,” he said. A recent delegation from the country to Gitmo met with just...

Palau's Prez Makes Moral Call to Take in Detainees

'They're not monsters,' says island leader

(Newser) - That Palau's president was once a defense lawyer may explain why he risked upsetting his island's 20,000 residents and their peaceful isolation from the world to take in 13 former Guantanamo detainees. "They should be presumed innocent because no one has proven them guilty," newly elected Johnson...

4 Chinese Gitmo Detainees Freed to Bermuda

Beijing opposes sending other Muslim inmates to Palau

(Newser) - Four Chinese Muslims inmates from Guantanamo have been released in Bermuda in the first successful US resettlement of Uighurs since 2006, the AP reports. The disposition of 13 others is unclear, according to the Miami Herald, but Palau has offered to accept them, a move China opposes. Beijing has called...

Palau to Take Gitmo's Chinese Detainees

Island nation's move resolves key camp-closing concern

(Newser) - Palau agreed to accept 17 Chinese Muslims who have languished in legal limbo at Guantanamo Bay, indicating a resolution to one of the thorniest issues facing the Obama administration's decision to close the prison camp. The announcement, which would clear the last of the Uighurs from the camp, was a...

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