US transfers 7 to Russia from Guantanamo base

The United States extradited seven Russian citizens who were being held at the US base in Guantanamo to Moscow on February 28.

"The US authorities have transferred the Russian citizens who fought for the Taliban in Afghanistan. They are currently being held in a Russian detention center," a police source reported on March 1.

The US naval base in Guantanamo reportedly had eight Russian convicts charged by the Russian police with border trespassing, criminal complicity and mercenary involvement in an armed conflict.

Representatives of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office visited the American base in Cuba in early 2002 to identify the Russian inmates.

Russia asked the United States for their extradition. A representative of the North Caucasian department of the Prosecutor General's Office also visited the base.

The inmates were identified as Shamil Khazhiyev and Ravil Gumarov from Bashkortostan, Rasul Kudayev and Ruslan Odigov from Kabardino-Balkaria, Ravil Mingazov and Airat Vakhitov from Tatarstan, Rustam Akhmerov from Chelyabinsk and Timur Ishmuradov from the Tyumen region.

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office says all of them were recruited by radical Islamic organizations and sent to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban.