June 11 (Bloomberg) -- Four Chinese Muslims who were being held by the U.S. at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba were sent to Bermuda today for resettlement, the Justice Department said.

The four Uighurs were among a group of 17 being held at Guantanamo that the U.S. cleared for release and has been trying to relocate.

President Barack Obama promised to close the Guantanamo detention facility, which houses more than 200 prisoners, by January. The State Department has had trouble persuading other countries to accept detainees, including the Uighurs, whose lawyers say they would be persecuted if returned to China.

“By helping accomplish the president’s objective of closing Guantanamo, the transfer of these detainees will make America safer,” said Attorney General Eric Holder in a statement today. “We are extremely grateful to the government of Bermuda.”

Also today, the Justice Department announced that two Guantanamo detainees were transferred to their home countries. Jawad Jabber Sadkhan was sent to Iraq and Mohammed El Gharani to Chad, the department said in a statement today.

The U.S. and Bermuda, a British territory, have agreed to “consult on a regular basis concerning the status of these individuals,” said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, in an e-mail.

Accepting Uighurs

Palau, a Pacific island nation, has also agreed to accept Uighurs, Palau President Johnson Toribiong said in a statement this week.

The U.S. has convened a multi-agency task force to review each of the Guantanamo detainees to determine whether they should be released, tried in court or held indefinitely.

The Uighurs were subject to release as a result of court orders, according to the Justice Department.

The Uighur detainees are from Xinjiang, a predominantly Muslim far-western region of China. Before the Sept. 11 attacks, they traveled to Afghanistan to train in camps in the Tora Bora mountains, according to U.S. court filings.

Many of the Uighurs fled to Pakistan when the U.S.-led coalition’s bombing campaign to oust the Taliban regime began in October 2001, according to the U.S. They were captured and turned over to the U.S. military.

Fearing China

China, which considers the Uighur detainees terrorists, has repeatedly urged their return. The U.S. hasn’t acceded to the request because the Uighurs “fear that if they are returned to China they will face arrest, torture or execution,” according to court papers filed by the U.S.

The Uighurs’ lawyers said they fled China because of racial repression and discrimination. The camps in Afghanistan were run by a Uighur separatist group designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization, according to the U.S. Some Uighurs said they had gone there for weapons training to fight the Chinese government, according to the Justice Department’s court filings.

The Uighurs who were released were identified as Abdul Nasser, Jalal Jalaldin, Abdul Semet and Huzaifa Parhat.

To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Blum in Washington at jblum4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 11, 2009 18:09 EDT