A Tunisian nationwide who had turn out to be one in all Guantánamo Bay’s longest-held detainees has been launched from the Cuban compound, the Pentagon introduced on Monday night time.
Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yazidi was transferred to his house nation after being held with out cost because the detention facility opened in January 2002. The 59-year-old appeared in one of many detention centre’s most iconic images, exhibiting detainees kneeling within the open-air compound of Camp X-Ray.
His launch comes amid a flurry of transfers this month, together with three different folks despatched to Kenya and Malaysia. The jail’s inhabitants has dropped marginally beneath Joe Biden’s management, falling from 40 folks when he took workplace to the present 26. Greater than half at the moment are eligible for switch.
A leaked army evaluation from 2007 indicated that Pakistani authorities captured Yazidi in December 2001 close to the Afghanistan border. US officers claimed he was a part of a gaggle fleeing the battle of Tora Bora and alleged ties to al-Qaeda, although human rights organizations have lengthy challenged the credibility of such claims.
A fancy collection of diplomatic hurdles saved Yazidi detained lengthy after he was cleared for switch in 2007 beneath each the Bush and Obama administrations. The previous state division official Ian Moss attributed the delay to diplomatic challenges with Tunisia and Yazidi’s reported unwillingness to contemplate various nations for resettlement, in keeping with the New York Occasions.
The power, constructed on a US naval base in south-eastern Cuba following the “conflict on terror”, has drawn worldwide condemnation all through its existence since changing into an emblem of post-9/11 human rights issues. Its critics have lengthy highlighted issues over indefinite detention with out trial and controversial interrogation strategies.
All through its 22-year historical past, an estimated 780 folks have handed by means of Guantánamo’s cells. The Pentagon provided no particulars about preparations for Yazidi’s return to Tunisia.
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