Obama presented a plan to close Guantanamo

US President Barack Obama announced the completion of the development plan to close the prison at the military base in Guantanamo in Cuba. The head of state made a special statement that was broadcast on the White House website.

The plan proposed by the Ministry of Defense for the consideration of a part of prisoners into the United States involves one -time expenses of $ 475 million. In addition, with the closure of the base in Guantanamo, the annual savings of the Ministry of Defense will be $ 80 million.

The US President noted that as of February 2016, the guantanam contains 91 prisoners. Of these, 35 to the summer of this year will be transferred to native countries or third states. The rest will be sent to the territory of the United States.

At the same time, the place where the prisoners will need to be transferred to the United States is not yet determined. Earlier on February 23, the Associated Press reported that we can talk about 13 possible institutions, including the current prisons of Colorado, South Carolina and Kansas.

The return of prisoners in the United States is expected to become the main subject of discussion in Congress, since in 2011, Obama personally forbade translating prisoners from Guantanamo. Obama called on congressmen to hold an impartial hearing of the corresponding bill in order not to leave the decision on the base in Guantanamo to the future president.

The closure of the prison in Guantanamo was one of Obama's main election promises during the campaign in 2008. Since 2009, the State Department has sent 147 prisoners of Guantanamo to their homeland or to those states where they were ready to accept.

The camp was repeatedly criticized, since it is located outside the United States, which means that the prisoners do not apply to law and freedom prescribed in the laws of the country. This circumstance was used for cruel interrogations of terrorists. At the end of 2014, the Senate Commission recognized brutal methods of interrogations, which were applied, among other things, ineffective.