President Obama is to transfer at least 100 inmates inside the Guantánamo Bay prison to a jail in his home state of Illinois, the White House announced yesterday in the latest phase of his troubled effort to shut the controversial detention facility.
Source: Time Online
- The move will be resisted by many on Capitol Hill and the US public, a majority of whom believe that Guantánamo should remain open. However, many in Illinois welcomed the announcement as they believe that it will create jobs.
- Obama has ordered the US Government to buy the Thomson correctional centre, a maximum-security prison in a rural area about 150 miles west of Chicago, from the state and turn it into a federal facility.
- The jail, built in 2001 at a cost of $120 million (£74 million), has a maximum-security section that can house 1,600 inmates. Because of budget problems, that part of the facility remains empty.
- The minimum- security wing currently houses 200 prisoners. There are still about 215 detainees in Guantánamo, just over a month before Mr Obama’s self- imposed deadline to shut the facility by January 22.
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