Five Gitmo detainees transferred

President Barack Obama signed an executive order on January 22, 2009, to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year. Five years later, the prison for terrorism suspects remains open, with 155 detainees (as of December 2013). Click through for a look inside the controversial facility. Here, President George W. Bush's official picture is replaced by Obama's in the lobby of the headquarters of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo on January 20, 2009, the day the latter was sworn in as president.

The U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay has held terror suspects since January 2002. Early in the war on terror, the Bush administration argued these detainees were "enemy combatants" who didn't have the protections accorded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. Here, a detainee stands at an interior fence at Guantanamo Bay in October 2009.

A Navy sailor surveys the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in October 2009. In December 2013, Congress passed a defense spending bill that makes it easier to transfer detainees out of the facility.

U.S. military guards move a detainee inside the detention center in September 2010. At its peak, the detainee population exceeded 750 men at Guantanamo.

A military doctor holds a feeding tube used to feed detainees on a hunger strike at a Camp Delta hospital at Guantanamo in June 2013. In March 2013, the U.S. military announced that dozens of detainees had begun a hunger strike. By that June, more than 100 detainees were on a hunger strike, and more than 40 were being force-fed, military officials said.

Muslim detainees kneel during early morning prayers in October 2009. Cells are marked with an arrow pointing in the direction of Mecca, regarded as Islam's holy city.

A soldier stands near a placard on the fence line of the detention facility in January 2012.

A Quran sits among a display of items isssued to detainees in September 2010. The suspects are given a prayer mat and a copy of the Muslim holy book as well as a toothbrush, soap, shampoo and clothing.

A U.S. military guard walks out of the maximum security section of the detention center in September 2010.

A German shepherd police dog undergoes training exercises in October 2009 at Guantanamo Bay.

A camp librarian views artwork painted by detainees in September 2010.

A detainee rubs his face while attending a "life skills" class inside the Camp 6 high-security detention facility in April 2009.

A seat and shackle await a detainee in the DVD room of the maximum security Camp 5 detention center in March 2010.

U.S. Marines join in martial arts training at the U.S. naval base in September 2010.

Members of the military walk the hallway of Cell Block C in the Camp 5 detention facility in January 2012.

Guards move a detainee from his cell in Cell Block A of the Camp 6 detention facility in January 2012.

A detainee waits for lunch in September 2010. The cost of building Guantanamo's high-security detention facilities was reportedly about $54 million.

Marines get an early-morning workout at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in October 2009.

A bus carries military guards from their night shift at the detention center in September 2010.

A military guard puts on gloves before moving a detainee within the detention center in September 2010.

Members of the U.S. Navy move down the hallway of Cell Block C in the Camp 5 detention facility in January 2012.

A U.S. military guard holds shackles before preparing to move a detainee in September 2010.

An American flag flies over Camp 6 at Guantanamo in June 2013.

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• Three of the detainees are sent to Georgia


• The other two are sent to Slovakia


• The five were approved for transfer by a task force that looked at security risk


• One detainee is a Yemeni who had been held for more than 10 years

(CNN) -- Five detainees at Guantanamo Bay were transferred to the nations of Slovakia or Georgia as part of the U.S. plan to reduce the facility's population of detainees who were suspected of terrorism after the September 11, 2001, attacks, officials said Thursday.

All five detainees "were approved for transfer by consensus of" a review task force that also looked at security issues, the U.S. Department of Defense said in a statement.

As of Thursday, 143 detainees remain at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, the Pentagon said. That number compares to the facility's population height of more than 750 people after it began accepting post-9/11 prisoners.

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Three of the detainees -- Salah Mohammed Salih Al-Dhabi, Abdel Ghaib Ahmad Hakim, and Abdul Khaled Al-Baydani -- are slated to be sent to Georgia, in the Caucasus region at the border of Europe and Asia.

The other two -- Hashim Bin Ali Bin Amor Sliti and Husayn Salim Muhammad Al-Mutari Yafai -- are scheduled to be transferred to Slovakia in Central Europe.

Hakim was represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, which identified him as Abd Al Hakim Ghalib Ahmad Alhag.

Alhag (Hakim), who is from Yemen, had been detained for more than 10 years and been cleared for release "for years," but his transfer was delayed "as the U.S. inexplicably opposed his release in court," the center charged.

"The U.S. finally transferred him on the eve of new litigation by the Center for Constitutional Rights challenging his continued indefinite detention based on or because of his Yemeni citizenship. Such arbitrary detention violates U.S. and international law, including the Geneva Conventions, which the U.S. is obligated to uphold," the center said.

Attorneys for the center praised Alhag's transfer out of Gitmo.

"We are grateful to the Republic of Georgia for offering our client a new home where he can begin to rebuild his life after more than a decade in Guantanamo without charge or trial," the center said in a statement.

Of the 143 men in Guantanamo, 84 are from Yemen, and 54 of them have been approved for transfer, the center said.

Alhag's transfer makes him the first Yemeni to be released since 2010, the center said.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that detainees have a constitutional right to challenge their detention, and the following year, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the detention facility within a year, which has been delayed due to difficulties in relocating the prisoners.

Last May, the U.S. government transferred five detainees to Qatar in exchange for the Taliban's release of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was held captive for five years.