According to the joint EU-US statement of June 15, 2009, and the EU Commission's statement of April 2009, Italy will welcome, on humanitarian grounds, a detainee from Guantanamo Bay prison. The prisoner is Yemeni national Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman. At the moment, there are 78 other detainees in the prison, each waiting to be allocated to another country. Beginning in 2003, more than 800 people linked to global terrorism were sent to the Guantanamo Bay prison. They are classed as "enemy combatants," a term that avoids "prisoners of war" and the protections of the Geneva Convention.