Illinois to get some Gitmo detainees, official says

Posted by Philip Dru on 12/15/09 • Categorized as Detention Camps

Washington (CNN) — A limited number of detainees from the Guantanamo Bay prison will be transferred to a prison in Illinois, President Obama will announce Tuesday, a senior administration official said.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Sen. Richard Durbin will go to the White House on Tuesday for a briefing on the plan to use Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Illinois, to help shut down the controversial facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Illinois state officials have said the plan would call for housing federal prisoners, including some detainees from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in the largely vacant maximum-security facility in northern Illinois.

The governor and other officials have said such a deal could provide up to 2,000 jobs and up to $1 billion in federal money to the area.

Durbin, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, has spoken positively of the plan. He said in November that federal officials indicated fewer than 100 detainees from Guantanamo would be housed in the 1,600-bed facility. They would be in a wing under the control of the U.S. Defense Department, while the Bureau of Prisons would assume responsibility for the rest of the facility.

Built in 2001, the Thomson prison sat empty for five years because the state lacked the resources to open it. Despite being built as a maximum-security facility, it houses 144 minimum-security male inmates, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections’ Web site.

It is about 150 miles west of Chicago.

The U.S. military is holding about 215 men at Guantanamo. Among the detainees are five suspects with alleged ties to the 9/11 conspiracy, including accused mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who will be transferred to New York to go on trial in civilian court.

CNN | Tue, Dec 15, 2009

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