The Guantanamo prisoner Bulgaria has agreed to accept has landed on Bulgarian soil, local authorities inform Wednesday.

The American government and the US Embassy in Sofia announced Tuesday that they were sending two former Guantanamo prisoners to Bulgaria and Spain.

The prisoner, accepted by Bulgaria, is a 38-year-old Syrian, who will have refugee status. For months now, Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, has reiterated the man will not be of any trouble. The refugee will leave at large with his family and Bulgaria will help him adjust, learn the language and find a job.

The authorities have persistently refused to reveal the identity of the Syrian citizen; they only say he is not a “dangerous terrorist” and has been detained by the US over suspicions of having ties with terrorist organizations' members, but was released from prison status over lack of proof and sent to Bulgaria, a NATO member country.

At the beginning of April, information leaked to Bulgarian media that the Bulgarian government agreed to accept a 38-year-old Syrian-born ethnic Kurd named Masum Abda Mohammed.

Masum spent nearly eight years at the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay on charges of being part of the Osama bin Laden group, fighting in the Tora Bora mountains, and whose name was featured on a list of people trained as sharpshooters and in planting explosives.

Masum insists he has shot no more than seven bullets during his police training in Syria, claims he has been mistaken for a man, nicknamed Bilal, and explains his visit to Afghanistan with searching for a wife, as the price there is ten times lower than in Syria, according to media reports.

Bulgaria decided at the end of last year to accept one detainee from the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, responding positively to Washington request to house prisoners and as a strong gesture of cooperation between Europe and the US.

The US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba had been used by the US navy, and since 2001, after the 9/11 attacks, as a maximum security military prison for people arrested on suspicions of terrorism and military crimes. A scandal shook the Bush administration over reports of inhumane treatment of prisoners and torture.

The transfer of prisoners is part of a drive by US President Barack Obama to close the widely criticized jail set up by his predecessor, George Bush.

Obama had promised to shut down the facility within a year of taking office but that deadline passed by the end of 2010. With the unloading of two more Guantanamo prisoners to Bulgaria and Spain, the total number of inmates is reduced to 181.

Obama should be able to close the US prison in Guantanamo Bay during his first term, despite missing his original deadline, US State Department officials now say.

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