Deal for Gitmo 2 remain unchanged – Ayorkor Botchway

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, has indicated, the Akufo-Addo administration has not altered the formal agreement between Ghana and the United States over the two Guantanamo Bay detainees being hosted in the country.

She was responding to a query from the ranking Member on Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.

“Mr. Speaker, we have not changed anything. In the note verbales that were exchanged between the two countries. Indeed there was no agreement. The whole transaction was done through what we call a note verbale from both sides. What we have done is to attach all those documents.”

The two detainees, Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby, who were in detention for 14 years after being linked with terrorist group Al-Qaeda, were brought to Ghana in 2016, for a period, after which they were expected to be reintegrated in their home countries.

The move was however condemned by many including the now-governing New Patriotic Party, who described them as a security threat.

The Supreme Court, in June, however, ordered that the agreement covering the resettlement be submitted to Parliament for ratification or otherwise, failing which the two ex-detainees would be repatriated.