Russian delegation to visit jailed citizen in Guantanamo

A Russian delegation plans to visit a citizen held in the US detention facility at naval base Guantanamo Bay in Cuba next month, a senior diplomat said Friday. "The goal is ... to visit Russian citizen Ravil Mingazov, who is kept there without a trial and investigation for 10 years already," Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry's envoy for human rights, democracy and the rule of law, told reporters. Noting that the meeting should have taken place long before, Dolgov said they would also "raise the question of closing completely this detention facility, where human rights are violated most seriously." He said the delegation could visit the facility on Jan. 17, but a final confirmation on the date is yet to come from the US side. Mingazov, who has been kept in Guantanamo since October 2002, has never been charged with any crime. But the United States believes he was a member of an al-Qaida-linked Islamic movement of Uzbekistan. The man is the only one out of eight Russian citizens who have been once held in Guantanamo. The rest were extradited to Russia in 2004. The Guantanamo facility still holds 164 detainees, most of whom have not ever been charged. US President Barack Obama has repeatedly pledged to close it since 2009. In November, he reiterated his commitment but has so far failed to act.