Guantanamo Bay: By the Numbers

[Valar Dohaeris]

▪ Current detainee census: 45 captives, from 13 countries.

▪ Captives among the 45 currently approved for transfer or repatriation to their homelands, some with conditions: 9.

▪ Cost to house one detainee a year: In July 2011, the Obama administration offered an estimate of $800,000. A summer of 2013 crunch by Democrats in Congress based on Defense Department figures put the cost at $2.7 million per prisoner. With downsizing and an FY2015 budget of $445 million, the figure is now $9,888,888 per prisoner a year.

▪ Number of Guantánamo detainees released by Bush administration: About 540. Figure imprecise because of Bush-era CIA black sites there that hid prisoners.

▪ Guantánamo detainees released by Obama administration: 197, including three who died in detention.

▪ Youngest: Probably forever prisoner Hassan bin Attash, 31 or 34, of Yemen.

▪ Oldest captive: Forever prisoner Saifullah Paracha, 69, of Pakistan.


▪ Periodic Review Board approved “forever prisoners,” indefinite detainees under the Law of War, without charge or trial: 26.

▪ Pentagon staff assigned to prison camp zone: On Thanksgiving Day 2016 spokesman Capt. John Filostrat put the figure at 1,700 following a period of downsizing. Before the detention center decided to do fuzzy math, spokesmen gave precise figures. On April 15, 2014, when the prison was more transparent, it reported a total staff of 2,268, up from 2,127, as of Nov. 6, 2013. Of the total, around than 300 of them have been civilians, mostly contractors, and the overwhelming majority of troops are from the U.S. Army. Navy prison medical staff numbered around 137.

▪ Total number of residents at Guantánamo: 5,523, according to the base, on Sept. 12, 2016, down from 5,778 on June. 23, 2014.

▪ Graduating seniors at the base high school Class of 2015: 12.

▪ Detainees who died in the camps: Nine.

Two Saudis and a Yemeni were found dead Camp 1 June 10, 2006 in what the Southern Command calls suicides by hanging; another Saudi, was found dead in Camp 5 in May 30, 2007 in what the Southern Command calls a suicide by hanging; an Afghan man at the detention center hospital in Dec. 30, 2007 in what the Southern Command said was colon cancer; a Yemeni man in the psychiatric ward June 1, 2009 in what the Southern Command called suicide, strangled by the elastic band from underwear, according to a military autopsy; an Afghan man designated for indefinite detention collapsed Feb. 1, 2011 in a cell block after working out on an exercise machine in Camp 6 in what the Southern Command called a heart attack; and an Afghan man was found hanging from a bed sheet in a Camp 6 recreation yard on May 17, 2011 in what the the Southern Command called suicide. On Sept. 10, 2012 the military disclosed that another detainee was found dead in his Camp 5 cell two days earlier, on Sept. 8, 2012, in what Southern Command said was a suicide by overdose of drugs complicated by acute pneumonia.

▪ Captives in camps with prostheses: Five as of Aug. 14, 2015 Navy services solicitation.

▪ Size of Navy base: 45 square miles, straddling Guantánamo Bay, from prison camp to air strip.

▪ Prison commanders: 16 admirals and generals, since detention center opened in 2002. Rear Adm. Peter J. Clarke took charge Nov. 4, 2015, relieving Air Force Brig. Gen. Jose Monteagudo, who was dispatched by Southcom to run prison operations for four months. Rear Adm. Edward Cashman is up next.

▪ First captives: 20 arrived Jan. 11, 2002 to inaugurate Camp X-Ray.

▪ Number of first 20 still there: 2. (Lone war crimes convict Ali Hamza al Bahlul of Yemen and long-cleared Tunisian Ridah Bin Saleh al Yazidi.)

▪ Last known arrival: Muhammed Rahim al Afghani, described as a high-level al Qaida captive, on March 14, 2008.

▪ Last detainee release: Mauritanian Mohamedou Ould Slahi repatriated on Oct. 17, 2016. Earlier, Saudi Mohammed Shimrani was repatriated on Jan. 11, 2016 and Kuwaiti Fayez al Kandari was repatriated on Jan. 8, 2016.

▪ Last detainee resettlement: Ten captives to Oman on Jan. 15, 2017 following four Yemenis to Saudi on Jan. 4, 2017. Earlier, the U.S. sent a Yemeni to Cape Verde on Dec. 2, 2016 and 15 detainees to the United Arab Emirates on Aug. 13, 2016.

▪ Last convict departure: Noor Uthman Mohammed of Sudan, who pleaded guilty to war crimes in exchange for a short prison sentence, on Dec. 18, 2013. A Pentagon official upended that conviction Jan. 9, 2015.

▪ International Committee of the Red Cross delegation visits to the detention center since it opened Jan. 11, 2002: 120.

▪ Daily calorie offering to each detainee: 4,500 according to a 9/12/2011 media briefing.

▪ Nations that have resettled or offered temporary residency to cleared detainees who are not their citizens: 30: Albania, Belgium, Bermuda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cape Verde, El Salvador, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Montenegro, Oman, Palau, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates and Uruguay.

▪ Nation that has resettled the largest number of non-citizen freed detainees: Oman and the United Arab Emirates have each accepted 20 Yemenis for resettlement. Albania has taken 11 to include Uighurs, Egyptians, an Algerian, Libyan, Tunisian and Uzbek.

▪ Captives convicted by Military Commission: Four. Two of them are awaiting delayed sentencing and four men who had been earlier convicted were subsequently cleared through appeal.

1. Foot soldier David Hicks in a 2007 plea bargain to return home, now free in his native Australia and appealing through U.S. system. A Pentagon review panel annulled that conviction Feb. 18, 2015.

2. Osama bin Laden driver Salim Hamdan at trial in July-August 2008, now free in his native Yemen. A civilian court vacated his conviction, finding “providing material support for terror” was not a legitimate war crime.

3. Bin Laden media aide Ali Hamza al Bahlul of Yemen at trial in November 2008, serving life in a special prison annex. A civilian court vacated his conviction in two phases, ending on June 12, 2015, then an appeals court reinstated his conspiracy conviction and upheld it on Oct. 20, 2016.

4. Foot soldier Ibrahim al Qosi of Sudan in an August 2010 plea bargain that returned him to his native Sudan on July 10, 2012. In December 2015 he appeared on a video produced by Yemen’s Al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, in the role of a group religious leader.

5. Toronto-born Omar Khadr in an October 2010 plea bargain to return to his native Canada in 2011 and serve at most seven more years there. He was repatriated on Sept. 29, 2012, and released on bail into western Canada May 7, 2015.

6. Paramilitary training camp small-arms instructor Noor Uthman Mohammed on Feb. 18, 2011 in a plea bargain to return to his native Sudan by 2014, provided he testifies for the government at federal and military trials until his release. A Pentagon official disapproved the conviction on Jan. 9, 2015.

7. Former CIA captive and ex-U.S. resident Majid Khan, a Pakistani, in a February 2012 plea bargain to postpone his sentencing while he testifies against other fellow “high-value captives.”

8. Saudi Ahmad al Darbi, in a February 2014 plea that admitted responsibility for al-Qaida's October 2002 attack on the French oil tanker Limburg, which happened while he was already at Guantánamo. Sentencing was postponed until August 2017.

▪ Captives currently facing a Military Commission: Seven.

Alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators in the 9/11 attacks, a death penalty trial — Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi bin al Shibh, Ammar al Baluchi, Mustafa al Hawsawi.

Saudi-born Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, facing a death penalty trial as alleged architect of the October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen that killed 17 US sailors.

Iraqi Abd al Hadi al Iraqi, accused of running al-Qaida’s army from 2002 to 2004.

▪ U.S. Supreme Court cases involving detainee rights during the War on Terror: Three.

▪ Times the justices sided with detainees against the Bush administration: Three.

▪ Largest captive population since detention center opened: About 677 in July 2003.

▪ Smallest: 20 on Jan. 11, 2002.

▪ Total number of detainees held at Guantánamo in the war on terror: The figure is at least 780 with the Senate ‘Torture Report’ revelation that Ibn al Shaykh al Libi, ISN 212, was held at a CIA prison there.

Updated on Jan. 17, 2017

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