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Sweden welcomes release of Guantanamo detainee

Sweden has welcomed the release of the lone Swedish detainee from the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as officials here confirmed that he was 25-year-old Mehdi Ghezali.

"It is extremely gratifying that the Swedish national from Guantanamo was finally released," said Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds.

"He is now free and is heading home to Sweden."

"It was not easy to convince the Americans of the need to follow basic legal principles in this matter. But we managed to drive home to them that you do not detain prisoners indefinitely without charging them," she added in a statement.

Ms Freivalds' spokeswoman Maria Haakansson meanwhile said the freed detainee was Mr Ghezali, who hails from Arrebro in central Sweden and was arrested in December 2001 in Pakistan, near the Afghan border, and turned over to US authorities who shipped him to Guantanamo.

Earlier the US Defence Department said it had transferred for release a Swedish detainee.

The announcement came just days after Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson said a Swede being held at Guantanamo Bay would soon be released.

Mr Persson met US President George W Bush in Washington in April to push for Mr Ghezali's release.

Mr Ghezali has been a prisoner at Guantanamo since January 2002.

His family has argued that he was in Pakistan to study at a Koranic school.

Most of the Guantanamo detainees were captured in Afghanistan as part of the "war on terrorism" declared after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Two Australians, David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, are currently being held at Guantanamo Bay and both are listed to face a military tribunal.

In its statement, the Pentagon said "the decision to transfer or release a detainee is based on many factors, including whether the detainee is of further intelligence value to the United States and whether he is believed to pose a threat to the United States or whether the individual has committed offences triable by military commission".

The Pentagon said a total of 147 detainees have now left Guantanamo.

--AFP