Belgian detainees at Guantanamo Bay arrived at Guantanamo on February 15, 2002, and were repatriated on April 25, 2005. On October 11, 2009, the Belgian government accepted the transfer of a former Guantanamo captive who was not a Belgian citizen. Belgian detainees at Guantanamo Bay The United States Department of Defense held two Belgian detainees in Guantanamo. A total of 778 suspects have been held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba since the camps opened on January 11, 2002 The camp population peaked in 2004 at approximately 660. Only nineteen new suspects, all "high value detainees" have been transferred there since the United
Guantanamo Bay detention camp Mail privileges of Guantanamo Bay detainees). "The New York Times" and other newspapers are critical of the camp; columnist Thomas Friedman urged George W. Bush to "just shut it down", calling Camp Delta "... worse than an embarrassment." Another "New York Times" editorial supported Friedman's proposal, arguing that Guantánamo is part of "... a chain of shadowy detention camps that includes Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the military prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and other secret locations run by the intelligence agencies" that are "part of a tightly linked global detention system with no accountability in law." In November