The U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay has a new commander. Rear Adm. Fernandez Ponds has been selected to run the detention center.

According to The Associated Press, the U.S. Navy has announced that Ponds will be the next commander of the task force in charge of the prison where the U.S. currently holds 122 men in detention.

Ponds is a native of Alabama, who received his commission from Officer Candidate School in June 1983.

Currently Ponds serves as commander of an expeditionary strike group as well as an amphibious group in San Diego. Ponds will replace Rear Adm. Kyle Cozad, taking command in July.

Guantanamo Bay has been involved with much controversy regarding the abuse and torture of its prisoners.

In 2013 Moath al-Alwi, a Yemeni national who was one of the very first prisoners moved to the detention camp, wrote of the U.S. military prison staff's harsh attempts to break a hunger strike.

As reported by Al jazeera, the prisoner wrote, “The result can be read all over my body. It is visible on my bloodied nose and in my nostrils, swollen shut from the thick tubes the nurses force into them. It is there on my jaundiced skin, because I am denied sunlight and sleep. It is there, too, in my bloated knees and feet and my ailing back, wrecked from prolonged periods spent in the torture chair and from the riot squad’s beatings. You can even hear it in my voice: I can barely speak because they choke me every time they strap me into the chair.”

President Barack Obama has tried to close the detention center but was stymied by Congress.

His administration has, however, reduced the population by half by transferring prisoners to their homelands or to other countries.

Fifty-six of the current number of prisoners who remain there have been approved for transfer.