KUALA LUMPUR: The United States government has handed over two Malaysians held in Guantanamo Bay for 18 years.
Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said Malaysia accepted the return of Mohamad Farik Amin, 48, and Mohammed Nazir Lep, 47, on human rights grounds.
"The government has drawn up a comprehensive reintegration programme for them," Saifuddin said in the statement.
The programme covers support, welfare, and health checkups.
"The Home Ministry thanks the various agencies involved in realising the handing over process for the two Malaysians."
Farik and Nazir were arrested in Thailand in 2003 in connection to the Bali bombings that claimed 202 lives the year before.
They never faced trial until this year.
In January, under a plea bargain, both men reached agreements with prosecutors to charges of being accessories to the terrorist attacks in Bali.
Farik and Nazir also had to testify against the Bali bombings mastermind Encep Nurjaman a.k.a. Hambali, under the plea bargain.
Hambali is the former leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah movement – an affiliate of Al-Qaeda.
After a short trial, US military judge Lt. Col. Wesley A. Braun gave the duo a five-year jail sentence.
Meanwhile, the US Department of Defence confirmed Farik and Nazir's repatriation from Guantanamo Bay to the Malaysian government.
The department said that in June, the Convening Authority recommended that both men be repatriated or transferred to a third-party sovereign nation to serve the remainder of their five-year sentence.