The United States has asked Bulgaria to consider receiving a detainee from the Guantanamo Bay detention complex after the camp is closed, Bulgaria media said on December 11 2009.
 
According to 24 Chassa daily, US diplomat Daniel Fried, a special envoy on facilitating the closing of Guantanamo, sent a letter on December 7 to Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov asking the Government to consider the option of certain individuals, currently held in Guantanamo, being resettled in Bulgaria.
 
Fried said that he had spoken to Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov on December 3 2009 about the details, 24 Chassa said.
 
According to 24 Chassa sources, the meeting took place in Sofia. Fried asked Bulgaria to accept one particular Guantanamo detainee.
 
Tsvetanov, approached by 24 Chassa, declined to comment on the issue until Parliament had made a decision.
 
On December 15 2009, Parliament’s committees on internal security and public order and on foreign policy will hold a special meeting to discuss Fried’s letter, 24 Chassa said. Copies of the letter have been given to members of the committees.
 
Tsvetanov and Tsvetlin Yovchev, head of the State Agency for National Security, have been invited to attend the session.
 
"The case is under the jurisdiction of the Government, not the Foreign Ministry, and that’s why we will wait to see what decision they will take, which probably would have to be approved by Parliament too," 24 Chassa quoted Foreign Ministry spokesperson Dragovest Goranov as saying.
 
He did say that Foreign Ministry was taking part in the debate but the issue was of international importance and had to be dealt carefully.
 
It was also a question of whether the home country of the detainee would want him back, and whether Bulgaria had signed a prisoner exchange agreement with this country, Goranov said.
 
On June 15 2009, the European Union and the US endorsed a joint statement on the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. There are about 240 detainees, many said to be eligible for resettlement.
 
The idea of accepting former Guantanamo detainees has been received with misgiving in several EU states. So far, only the UK, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and, Belgium have indicated willingness to do so.
 
Earlier in June, EU interior ministers accepted the principle that it is up to an individual member state to decide whether to accept a former detainee, and accepted a system for information sharing and that former detainees would not necessarily have the freedom of movement ordinarily conferred on a third-country national when resident in the Schengen area.
 
Former detainees may be subject to surveillance and restrictions on movement.
 
The statement approved by the EU and the US on June 15 "allows those EU member states wishing to receive former detainees cleared for release, based on a request by the US, to refer to a common EU framework when doing so".