Lawyers slam US for sending Guantanamo prisoners to Albania

Lawyers slam US for sending Guantanamo prisoners to Albania: "

Lawyers slam US for sending Guantanamo prisoners to Albania
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A group of lawyers representing Guantanamo detainees on Friday criticised a US decision to transfer a group of former inmates to Albania.

Timed to coincide with President George W Bush's visit to Tirana on Sunday, the statement by the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said at least 30 prisoners held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are designated as ready for release.

But the prisoners cannot be repatriated, the CCR said, because they could face abusive treatment in their home countries.

The centre referred to the case of 15 prisoners from the Uighurs Muslim minority in western China, who had sought refuge in Afghanistan and were detained in Pakistan shortly after the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan.

At present, only Albania, has accepted some detainees - five Uighurs, one Algerian, an Uzbekh and an Egyptian - released from Guantanamo, the CCR said."