The U.S. commander in charge of the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba has been fired “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command,” U.S. Southern Command said in a statement on Sunday.
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Rear Admiral John Ring was reportedly removed from his post on Saturday, the brief statement said, without giving details about why.
Jose Ruiz, a spokesman for Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo, told Reuters the decision was the result of a month-long investigation completed earlier in April, but declined to provide specifics.
Ring had led Guantanamo since April 2018. General John Hussey, formerly the center’s deputy commander, will now lead it in an acting capacity, the statement said.
“This change in leadership will not interrupt the safe, humane, legal care and custody provided to the detainee population at GTMO,” Southern Command said in its statement.
The Guantanamo detention center, opened by Republican President George W. Bush to hold terrorism suspects captured overseas after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has become a byword for harsh detention practices that have opened the United States to accusations of torture.
Under the Obama administration, several detainees were released and transferred to nations willing to host them.