US Justice Department officials said on Friday that two Syrians held at Guantanamo Bay have been sent to Portugal.
US officials announced the transfer without naming the detainees.
There are only a handful of Syrians remaining among the detainees at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The latest transfers leave some 226 inmates there.
The transfer had been expected, since Portugal had said earlier this month it planned to take two detainees.
The Justice Department said the two were handed over to the control of the government of Portugal, but US authorities would not say if that meant they would remain in custody there.
“We would not have proceeded with the transfers if the United States or Portugal had any security-related concerns that were not adequately addressed,” said Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd.
In recent weeks, the administration of US President Barack Obama notified Congress that it planned to transfer six detainees — one to Afghanistan, two to Portugal, and three others, but it is not yet clear where the remaining three are headed.
Obama has ordered the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to be closed by January.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
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