Turki, Director of General Affairs at the Ministry of Interior and Supervisor of the Prince Muhammad Bin Naif Center for Care and Advice, has said that all 117 Saudis who had returned from Guantanamo had been released following rehabilitation, with some returned to their former positions of employment and others who had no previous positions being found work. “Some have been employed at the Prince Muhammad Center and helped to contract marriage as well as secure housing and vehicles,” Al-Turki said. Al-Turki added that the center had to-date advised and guided over 5,500 individuals returning from troubled areas in Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries. Al-Turki, addressing the families of the three Saudis repatriated last Saturday from the US at the capital's Riyadh Palace Hotel, said that the center had provided care for 500 Saudis returning from troubled areas and advised around 5,000 citizens. “All of them have been reintegrated into society,” he said. The escape of individuals from previous groups, Al-Turki noted, had affected the repatriation of some remaining Saudis, with plans for their return having been cancelled on previous occasions only minutes prior to their scheduled departure. Al-Turki, citing the case of Muhammad Atiq Al-Oufi Al-Harabi, said that some individuals who had returned to troubled areas after counseling and rehabilitation had begun to return to the Kingdom, and added that contacts had been made with a group of fugitives who expressed a willingness to return home. Al-Turki said six had returned while eight others remained at large. Al-Turki said that Prince Muhammad spoke to each returnee upon their return Saturday before they were taken to hospital for routine examinations and then on to Al-Haier Prison in Riyadh where they were scheduled to remain for several days before being taken to Prince Muhammad Center. Mesfir Al-Aili, a brother of returnee Abdul Aziz Al-Aili, asked Al-Turki if his brother could be transferred to prisons in Jeddah, Makkah or Taif, and was told that the program for returnees began at Al-Haier and ended at the Prince Muhammad Center. Al-Turki said all returnees had gone through the same process, part of which included family visits upon the completion of the rehabilitation program, and called on the families of the three returnees to assist in their reintegration into society. Moves to open more rehabilitation centers in other regions of the Kingdom were under way, according to Al-Turki, with the appointment of more staff, women among them, to complete rehabilitation teams. “However, we need more time to select trained people and suitable places,” he said. Al-Turki denied reports that the Prince Muhammed Center has received and put into rehabilitation 100 Yemenis released from Guantanamo.
