The Uighurs have been given letters terminating their jobs at Port Royal Golf Course, The Royal Gazette can reveal.

The four former Guantánamo Bay prisoners were taken on as groundsmen at the Southampton facility last summer after Premier Ewart Brown agreed to give them refuge on the Island.

But last week they were sent letters advising them that their employment was being terminated — a decision understood to have been taken by the board of trustees for the Island's public golf courses.

Board chairman Wendall Brown could not be reached yesterday and Port Royal general manager Bill Pitt said he could not comment.

But sources have told this newspaper that the move has baffled and upset colleagues of the Uighurs, who are said to have carried out their duties diligently without incident for more than a year. One source described feeling absolute surprise when told the news, as there had been no problems at all with the men's performance.

A second source said colleagues were worried for Khalil Mamut, Abdulla Abdulqadir, Ablikim Turahun and Salahidin Abdulahad, who fled their Chinese Turkestan homeland due to alleged religious persecution.

Mr. Mamut and Mr. Abdulqadir speak English and are improving at it all the time, but their two older countrymen are less fluent. The source said the four Muslims were hard workers who were always on time and were popular with other staff.

Wendall Brown told this newspaper last August that the Uighurs had been given temporary jobs in the run up to the 2009 PGA Grand Slam of Golf, helping to clean up areas of the course and get it in tip-top shape. They were kept on after the sporting tournament but will now finish work not long after this year's PGA event, which starts at Port Royal on Monday (October 18).

Dr. Brown brought the Uighurs here in June 2009 after secret negotiations with the US. The UK has refused ever since to issue them with passports or travel documents and remains in talks with America about their future.

It is not clear if the men are free to seek other jobs on the Island — or if they would be expected to comply with certain conditions imposed on expatriates looking for new work here, such as having to leave the Island to apply.

The Uighurs' lawyer, Richard Horseman, said in December that without passports or travel papers, his clients were "in legal limbo and effectively imprisoned in Bermuda". He would not comment yesterday.

A Ministry of Labour and Immigration spokeswoman did not respond to questions last night.

Governor Sir Richard Gozney told The Royal Gazette on October 6: "The issue of the four Uighurs in Bermuda continues under discussion between the UK and US governments."