Six detainees have been transferred from a US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for "war on terror" suspects and sent home, the Pentagon announced on Tuesday.
A civil rights group representing detainees at Guantanamo denounced the transfer to Tunisia of one of the detainees, Abdullah bin Omar, saying he was "at grave risk of torture and abuse."
The US Defense Department said two of the detainees were sent back to Tunisia and four others went to Yemen.
"These detainees were determined to be eligible for transfer following a comprehensive series of review processes at Guantanamo Bay," the Pentagon said in a statement.
It was unclear whether the six, who were not identified, were transferred for continued detention in their home countries or for release.
Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said they were cleared for transfer "once their respective governments provide credible assurances that they will be treated humanely and that the countries will take steps to mitigate the threat that these individuals pose to the United States and its allies."
The Center of Constitutional Rights (CCR) said one of the detainees was Abdullah bin Omar.
It said he faces 23 years in prison in Tunisia where he was convicted in absentia in the 1990s for his association with the non-violent Islamist party Ennahdha.
Attorneys with CCR and a British group Reprieve were denied requests to visit Abdullah before his transfer from Guantanamo, CCR said.
"Abdullah Bin Omar was cleared by the United States -- found not to be a threat and not to have information about terrorism. But the US has not apologized and set him free after five years in Guantanamo," Zachary Katznelson, a lawyer for Reprieve, said in a statement.
"Instead, he has been shipped to Tunisia, where abuse and possibly torture await him," he said.
About 80 other detainees at Guantanamo have been declared eligible for transfer or release, but action is tied up in State Department negotiations with third countries.
More than 400 detainees have been transferred to other countries since the detention center at Guantanamo was opened in early 2002 to receive prisoners taken into custody after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The most recent departures have reduced the detainee population at Guantanamo to about 375, the Pentagon said.
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