Britain hopeful for Guantanamo detainee’s release after US election

{mosads}The 2012 act, which was signed into law last year, continues to require the Secretary of Defense to vouch that released prisoners won’t pose a threat to the United States if they’re transferred to another country. However that provision – Section 1028 – was watered to give the secretary more “flexibility,” according to the Lawfare blog, a project of Harvard University and the Brookings Institution’s Project on Law and Security.

The new law “will now permit the Secretary of Defense to waive the onerous certification requirements for GTMO transfers overseas — including the requirement that there not have been any earlier cases of recidivism in the receiving country — if he certifies that ‘alternative actions will be taken’ that will ‘substantially mitigate’ the risk that the individual will engage in future terrorist activities,” the blog reported in December. “We hope this new provision will provide Secretary Panetta the flexibility necessary to allow resumption of the Administration’s efforts to transfer the dozens of GTMO detainees who were slated for such transfer … but whose transfers appear to have been blocked by transfer restrictions in earlier spending bills.”

Aamer says he was tortured into confessing links to al Qaeda. Britain has been demanding his release for years.