No Longer Enemy Combatant (NLEC) is a term used by the U.S. military for a group of 38 Guantanamo detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) determined they were not "enemy combatants".[1] None of them were released right away. Ten of them were allowed to move to the more comfortable Camp Iguana.[citation needed] Others, such as Sami Al Laithi, remained in solitary confinement.
Thirty-eight detainees were finally classified as NLECs.[2] The fifth Denbeaux report, "No-hearing hearings", reported that an additional three Combatant Status Review Tribunals determined that captives should not have been determined to have been enemy combatants, only to have their recommendation overturned.[3]
The Washington Post has published a list of the names of 30 of the 38 individuals who were determined not to have been enemy combatants.[2]
The delay in the release of some of the detainees was said to be due to considerations of their safety. Some could not be returned to their home countries, out of fears of retaliation from their fellow citizens, or from the governments of their countries. Some, like Al Laithi, were returned to their home countries after the US secured a promise that they would not be punished by their home countries. Others, like five of the Uyghur detainees in Guantanamo, were released when the US found a third country which would accept them.[4][5]
Three further captives who had been determined not to have been enemy combatants, who had been occupants of Camp Iguana since May 2005, were released in Albania in November 2006.[6][7][8]