The District would house Guantanamo Bay detainees, if President Obama asked them to, D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles said in an interview with The Washington Times today.
Nickles told The Times he hasn’t heard of any formal talks between District officials and the Obama administration about detainees coming to D.C., but said he would have some concerns to air out with Attorney General Eric Holder before any potential prisoner transfer.
“If he said he’d want us to do it, we’d do it,” Nickles told The Times. “But I think I’d sit down with Eric Holder … and say, ‘Now, let me ask you a few questions and see what the answers are here.’ “
The D.C. Attorney General told The Times his most pressing prisoner concern with the Justice Department is the housing of around 10 “narcoterrorists” in the District. Most were brought to D.C. on drug charges, and were allegedly involved with holding Americans hostage in Colombia, according to The Times.
“Some of these individuals have connections to the [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia], some of them may be lower level, some of them are probably higher level,” Nickles told The Times. “You put all those people together in one area and there could be mischief.”
