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WASHINGTON (AFP) — Osama bin Laden's former driver Salim Hamdan will be returned to Yemen "this week" after seven years at the Guantanamo Bay US detention camp, Yemen's embassy here said Tuesday.
"We were informed recently that Salim Hamdan is going to be released. We expect him to be in Yemen within this week," an embassy official told AFP.
"I don't have exact date, whether he [already] left or not," said Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman for Yemen's embassy in Washington.
Meanwhile a US administration official confirmed Tuesday that Hamdan -- the first detainee to stand trial in the special US military tribunal system set up to prosecute "enemy combatants" -- would be transferred to Yemen.
"We've been in negotiations for some time now to get his transfer," Albasha said, adding that a "breakthrough" in the talks came last week.
The "complex" negotiations took place in Sanaa, he said.
"At the end of the day, both sides understand that the transfer was the best thing to do, both sides," he stressed.
Washington to date has never been able to reach a deal with Yemen for the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo. About 100 of the remaining 250 detainees at the "war on terror" detention camp are Yemeni.
Washington has not reached an agreement with Sanaa that would allow US officials to send home more Yemeni prisoners.
"We have not had confidence that the Yemeni government would take the required measures to protect civilian population from the detainees once released," a Pentagon spokesman, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, recently told AFP.
Albasha said of the sudden shift in policy was "very good news."
"We hope this is going to be the first step towards more transfers of detainees," he said.
Hamdan will serve out the remaining month of his sentence, to December 27, in Yemen, according to US media reports, bringing to a close one of the most visible chapters in the US effort to detain and prosecute "enemy combatants" in the "war on terror."
Hamdan was found guilty on one count of providing material support to terrorism, but cleared of more serious charges that he conspired and plotted attacks for Al-Qaeda, in the first Guantanamo terrorism trial in August.
A jury of six US military officers at a Guantanamo terrorism trial in August sentenced Hamdan to five years and six months in prison for supporting terrorism -- which taking into account time served, amounted to only an additional five months.
After the shock verdict and sentence was handed down, in a stinging defeat for the administration, the Pentagon promptly announced that Hamdan would continue to be held at Guantanamo Bay after his sentence was served.
Hamdan, a native of Yemen and about 40 years old, was picked up by US forces in Afghanistan in late 2001, and arrived at the Guantanamo prison in 2002.
He was bin Laden's former driver and sometimes bodyguard, but denied any involvement in terrorist activities.
During the trial Hamdan's lawyers emphasized that their client had cooperated with US officials ever since he was detained.
Prosecutors tried to portray Hamdan as a cunning "Al-Qaeda warrior" and ruthless henchman to bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.
But defense attorneys described him as merely a hapless driver and insignificant figure within the Al-Qaeda network.
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