WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon's top lawyer said Friday that the Obama administration has not abandoned the possibility of transferring some prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention center to a prison in the United States despite strong congressional concerns.Defense Department general counsel Jeh Charles Johnson told the House Armed Services Committee that some suspected terrorists might be transferred to the U.S. for prosecution and others sent to a facility inside the U.S. for long-term incarceration.
Administration officials had raised those possible moves before, but Congress in June passed a law that would allow Guantanamo detainees to be transferred to the U.S. for prosecution only after lawmakers have had two months to read a White House report on how it plans to shut down the Guantanamo detention facility and disperse the inmates. The law is silent on whether Guantanamo detainees can be held inside the U.S. if they do not have a trial pending.
Johnson also said no prisoners would be released from custody inside the country.
Congress has blocked funding for transferring any Guantanamo detainees into the United States for the 2009 fiscal year ending Sept. 30. President Barack Obama ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba closed by January 2010.
Both civilian federal jails and military prisons are being considered for potential future incarceration for prisoners facing criminal prosecution, military tribunals, or long-term detention without a trial, Assistant Attorney General David Kris said at the same hearing.
More than 50 have been cleared for release and an administration task force is still sorting through the remaining 229 prisoners to determine their fates. The panel has reviewed about half the cases, according to a Justice Department official who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Government lawyers in both the Obama and Bush administrations say that an unspecified number of detainees should continue to be held without trial. Some of the evidence against them is classified or thin, and the government fears these most dangerous detainees could be released should they be given their day in court.
Johnson also said the Obama administration has not yet determined where it will hold newly captured al-Qaida or Taliban prisoners for extended detention after Guantanamo Bay's prison closes.