Beijing demands return of 17 Muslim detainees being sent to Palau, calls them terrorists

Beijing demands return of 17 Muslim detainees

BEIJING — Beijing says the 17 Chinese Muslims the United States is sending to Pacific island nation of Palau are terrorists and should be handed back to China instead.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Thursday that the United States should “stop handing over terrorist suspects to any third country, so as to expatriate them to China at an early date.”

Palau President Johnson Toribiong said earlier this week that Palau had agreed to a U.S. request to temporarily resettle the detainees, who were captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 but later determined by the Pentagon to not be enemy combatants after being detained in Guantanamo Bay.