Russian Citizen 'Not Approved' to Leave Gitmo, Awaits US Security Review

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Russian national Ravil Mingazov has not been approved for transfer from the notorious US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and must wait until the United States is confident he no longer threatens the country’s national security, a State Department official told Sputnik.

"He is not currently approved for transfer," the official said on Thursday. "He is eligible for review by an interagency body that is named the Periodic Review Board, which determines whether or not a detainee poses a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States and… whether or not detainees are approved for transfer."

Mingazov has been detained in Guantanamo since 2002 without any charges pressed. In November, the Russian Foreign Ministry's Human Rights Ombudsman Konstantin Dolgov said that Moscow expected the United States to release Mingazov at once given he was designated in the "not dangerous" prisoner category.

In 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee unveiled a 6,000-page report revealing the CIA’s use of torture from 2001 to 2006. Enhanced interrogation techniques, approved under the administration of US President George W. Bush, included the severe treatment of detainees at US detention centers, including at Guantanamo Bay.

The US government, the State Department representative told Sputnik, expects to have relocated all 34 detainees currently approved for transfer by the summer.

"We are in various stages of negotiations with a number of foreign governments, including final stages for some governments… for most of the detainees who are approved for transfer," the official noted.

Overcoming domestic resistance to relocating some of the prisoners from Guantanamo to US soil is part of the broader effort to close the detention facility, the State Department official added.

Earlier on Thursday, the Pentagon said the United States transferred 10 Yemeni prisoners to the government of Oman while the White House announced that 10 of the 93 remaining detainees at Guantanamo faced criminal charges in the United States, with the remainder eligible for transfer.

In his State of the Union address earlier this week, US President Barack Obama vowed to continue working to close the Guantanamo prison facility before leaving office, a pledge he has been trying to fulfill over congressional opposition since taking office in January 2009.