Two ex-Guantanamo inmates plan joint wedding ceremony

Two former Guantanamo inmates who were resettled in Uruguay will tie the knot in a joint ceremony with women they met in their new homeland, individuals close to the couples told AFP Friday.

Last December, six ex-detainees were released from the U.S. military prison and sent to Uruguay, which accepted them as refugees.

Both of the men met their Uruguayan wives -- who have converted to Islam -- in February and plan to marry in a joint wedding ceremony in Montevideo on June 6.

Tunisian Abdul bin Muhammad Abbas Ouerghi, 49, will marry Fatima, a language teacher and mother-of-one.

Meanwhile, Syrian national Abdelhadi Faraj, 39, will marry a woman called Samira.

"The legal steps were simple because both are permanent residents" of Uruguay, an individual close to the betrothed told AFP, asking to remain anonymous.

The couples will be married at an Egyptian Islamic cultural center in Montevideo.

The men are fresh off a three-week protest outside the U.S. embassy in Montevideo where they camped alongside several of the other former detainees.

During the demonstration, which ended last week, the former inmates accused the United States of washing its hands of them after more than a decade in prison.

Under a deal they signed with the Uruguayan government after the protest, they will receive $560 a month, an amount they had already been promised as refugees, but which they allege has sometimes failed to arrive on time.

They will also receive medical care, help finding work, Spanish classes and rent payments, enabling them to leave the communal apartment where they have been living -- which was provided by a labor union -- and get housing of their own.