10 Saudis exit Guantanamo

The Pentagon has downsized the detainee population at Guantanamo again – announcing Friday evening that it had sent 10 presumably long-held captives home to Saudi Arabia.

The transfer mission reduced the captive census at the interrogation and detention center at the U.S. Navy Base in southeast Cuba to “approximately 275,” a Defense Department statement said.

It was the latest in a year-plus series of releases from Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich kingdom where al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden was born. Now, the largest single concentration of captives come from Yemenis, bin Laden’s ancestral homeland.

Under established Saudi procedures, the captives will be able to meet with their families but be held for investigation and counseling and possible trial before being released into society.