Germany joined Portugal in voicing a willingness to take detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to aid President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to shut the camp. Germany is considering taking some detainees and will have “intensive discussions” about what to do with prisoners considered innocent who cannot return to their home countries, German government spokesman Thomas Steg said today. The announcement by Germany, coming two weeks after Portugal said it “will be available” to take some Guantanamo detainees, may make it easier for Obama to fulfill his campaign pledge to shut the prison, which has been the object of international condemnation and allegations of prisoner abuse. The Bush administration has been trying to resettle about 60 detainees it believes could be released because they no longer pose a serious threat to U.S. security. Many of these detainees, seized after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, face persecution or torture if returned to their home countries, so the U.S. has asked other nations to accept them for resettlement. “There will be prisoners who will neither want to remain in the U.S. nor will be able to return home,” Steg told reporters in Berlin. He said the considerations were humanitarian, as a way to ease the closure of the six-year-old prison should the issue of repatriation become a legal barrier. Portugal’s Dec. 10 offer came in a letter from Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado that urged members of the European Union to help resettle Guantanamo detainees who cannot be returned to their homelands.
