Uygur detainees case reaches US Supreme Court

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-22 10:42

WASHINGTON: The Supreme Court agreed this week to decide whether Guantanamo detainees who are considered no threat can be ordered released in the United States - over the objections of the Obama administration, Congress and the Chinese government.

The court's fourth look at the terror-suspects detention system, created by the Bush administration following the 9/11 attacks, will focus on 13 Chinese Uygurs, most of whom were cleared by the Pentagon for release in 2003. Six years later - and eight years after their capture in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001 - they remain in custody at the US naval base in Cuba.

China has long called for the prompt repatriation of Chinese terrorist suspects from Gutanamo.

"We oppose other nations taking these suspects and they should be repatriated to China immediately to be dealt with by the Chinese law," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu reiterated early this year.

Niu Xinchun, an expert on American studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said this issue is an "individual" case and it will not affect the relations between China and US.

Since the two countries have not yet set up any extradition agreement, those Chinese detainees cannot be extradited to the homeland, he said.

"China and US should establish an extradition system in the future, but now the time is still not ripe due to the different political systems," he added.

Jiang said the 17 suspected Chinese terrorists are members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, which has been listed as a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council, and should be handed over to China for trial.

AP-China Daily