Yemeni ex-Guantanamo detainees cannot be deported, Ghana says

Authorities said the two ex-Guantanamo Bay detainees transferred to Ghana by the U.S. have been granted refugee status and cannot be deported even though the contractual period they must stay has elapsed.

The Yemeni nationals were sent to Ghana in January 2016 for an initial two-year period after spending more than a decade at the U.S.-operated Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorism.

Mahmud Atef and Khalid al-Dhuby have lived in the capital, Accra, since they arrived.

Ghana Foreign Minister Shirley Botchwey told Reuters:“the government is constrained from immediately deporting them except to explore mutually acceptable means with other countries and the refugees.

“If we don’t get them to consent we cannot send them packing.”

The opposition is concerned that now the two years has expired, the U.S. no longer has shared responsibility for making sure the suspects pose no danger and has been pressing the government to deport them.

Their arrival in Ghana has long been disputed. President Nana Akufo-Addo, who was the main opposition leader at the time of the transfer, criticised the government for accepting the two Yemenis at the time.

Now his government is coming under pressure itself.

Neither man was tried or convicted at Guantanamo, nor have they been accused of any crime since arriving in Ghana.