General News of Friday, 15 January 2016

Source: ultimate1069.com

‘Consulting Parliament on Gitmos transfer irrelevant’ – Gbevlo

Col. Rtd. Larry Gbevlo-LarteyCol. Rtd. Larry Gbevlo-Lartey

A former National Security Coordinator Col. Rtd. Larry Gbevlo-Lartey insist it does not lie within the purview of government to have subjected the transfer of two Yemeni detainees from Guantanamo Bay to public scrutiny before allowing them into the country.

He maintains that claims by some parliamentarians that the legislature should have been consulted on the matter is baseless, considering the security implications taken into account prior to their transfer.

The former officer of the Ghana Armed Forced (GAF) has therefore shot down concerns by the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defense and Interior, Fritz Baffour that government needed to widen its scope of consultation in executive decisions that directly affect the Ghanaian populace.

According to him, such consultations is needless and does not conform to norms of the National Security Council which is obliged to keep classified information away from public discourse.

“There are so many security arrangements and mechanisms that go on, which are not privy to the public, and for me I would say this is one of them,” he stated.

Mr. Gbevlo-Lartey said Ghanaians need not to worry over the presence of the two Yemeni detainees from Guantanamo Bay in the country.

Mahmmoud Omar Mohammed Bin Atef, 36 and Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, 34 were held for more than 13 years at the detention facility in Cuba. They were unanimously approved for transfer by the inter-agency Guantanamo Review Task Force, according to a Pentagon statement.

But various stakeholders in Ghana have expressed worry over their presence in the country indicating that Ghana could be courting terrorist attacks with their presence in the country.

But responding to the issue on the Ultimate Breakfast Show hosted by Prince Minkah, the former Security Capo maintained that they pose no risk at all to the country.