Egypt has asked the United States to hand over five detainees held at the US base at Guantanamo in Cuba, state news agency MENA said today.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said in a written response to a parliamentary question that the United States had already moved the five Egyptians to the category of "least dangerous" detainees in the camp, it said.
The Egyptian authorities, who themselves have held hundreds of people in detention without charge, have said little in the past about Egyptian citizens held at Guantanamo. Hundreds of Muslims have been detained there without charges for more than two years.
Mr Aboul Gheit named the five detainees as Sharif el-Mashadd, Ayman el-Martafi, Ahmed Habib, Fadel Reda el-Wakili and Adel Fathi Ali el-Gazzar. Habib also has Australian nationality.
Egypt put its request to the United States after the US Supreme Court ruled this year that the detainees have the right to contest their detention through the US justice system.
It was not immediately clear if US authorities have ever released any Egyptians detained at Guanatanamo but Egyptians have played a significant role in the al-Qaeda organisation of Osama bin Laden.
Egypt's Islamic Jihad organisation merged with al-Qaeda in the 1990s under Ayman al Zawahri, the Egyptian Islamist who is now Osama bin Laden's deputy.