Guantanamo Detainees fail Australian Immigration Criteria

January 03 2009 by Bryan Palmer

Australia has formally declined a request by the United States to resettle former Guantanamo Bay prison inmates because they did not meet its strict Australian immigration and security criteria.

Australia's government formally rejected Saturday a request by the USA to accept former detainees from the Guantanamo Bay prison because they did not meet Australia immigration and security criteria.

Julia Gillard, Australia's Deputy Prime Minister, said the latest request came from the Bush Administration last month and followed a similar request earlier in 2008.

Gillard said: ""Clearly when we deal with any movement into this country, we bring to bear very tough national security assessments, very tough character assessments. We will consider any future requests on a case-by-case basis against the stringent criteria".

The US government is desperately trying to find a permanent home for approximately 60 detainees. Out of a total of 250 believed to be still in Guantanamo Bay, around 80 will be charged with war crimes; 100 are believed to still pose some form of security risk, but won't be charged.

President-elect, Barack Obama, has pledged to shut down the detention centre once he takes office and on December 18th Robert Gates, the US Defense Secretary requested his staff put a plan together for closing the facility.