NEW YORK: Diplomatic efforts to bring back two Malaysian Guantanamo detainees will continue while the United States considers their fate.
“We are not just leaving them (in Guantanamo),” Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told Malaysian journalists after a bilateral meeting with Serbian First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic here on Wednesday.
He was asked to comment on the fate of Mohammed Bashir Lap and Mohd Farik Amin, who have been incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay since September 2006.
The New Straits Times reported on Wednesday that Farik and Bashir, as well as Indonesian terror mastermind Riduan Isomuddin, were unlikely to taste freedom any time soon, as a US Department of Defence Periodic Review Board assessment in March found that the men would revert to their militant ways if released.
Farik and Bashir have been under US custody since 2006 for allegedly facilitating the activities of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group in the region, including the 2002 Bali and 2003 Jakarta J.W. Marriott Hotel bombings that killed more than 200 people.
They are also believed to be involved in a plot to hijack planes and crash them into targets on the US west coast.
Zahid said though diplomatic efforts to bring the two Malaysians back would continue, he stressed that they would be released only if they had been completely rehabilitated.
-New Straits Times
