US military releases long-held Guantanamo detainee to Tunisia | Human Rights News

The transfer of Ridah bin Saleh al-Yazidi from a US military prison in Cuba is the fourth in two weeks by the outgoing Biden administration.

The Pentagon has released a Tunisian prisoner who had been held at Guantanamo Bay since the notorious prison camp opened in 2002 without being charged.

Ridah bin Saleh al-Yazidi was repatriated from United States military prison from Cuba to Tunisia on Monday, according to a statement from the US Department of Defense.

The transfer is the fourth in two weeks by the outgoing Biden administration in an effort to reduce the population of the military prison, which housed 40 inmates when Biden took office in 2020.

Al-Yazidi was “determined through a rigorous interagency review process” as eligible for transfer.

“On January 31, 2024, the Minister of Defense [Lloyd] Austin has notified Congress of his intent to support this repatriation and, in coordination with our partner in Tunisia, we have met the requirements for responsible relocation,” Pentagon he said.

Al-Yazidi, 59, has never been charged with a crime by the US and was approved for transfer more than a decade ago, but so far no deal has been made with the Tunisian government to bring him home.

Pakistani soldiers captured al-Yazidi near the Afghan border in December 2001, and he was suspected of being an al-Qaeda fighter, The New York Times reported.

Twenty-six detainees remained in Guantanamo Bay with 14 eligible for transfer, the press release states.

Three prisoners are entitled to a periodic review of their status, seven are currently involved in the process of military commissions, and two have been convicted and sentenced, it added.

Al-Yazidi was sent to the prison on the day it opened on January 11, 2002, to house detainees captured during America’s so-called “war on terror” after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Located on a US military base in Cuba, the prison operates under a legal system that it runs military commissions which do not guarantee the same rights as traditional American courts.

Detainees who are granted release sometimes spend years at Guantanamo while Washington searches for countries to take them in after they are released, and some governments refuse to take them back or into them.

Guantanamo Bay once housed nearly 800 prisoners, many of whom spent their first time in secret CIA locations known as “black sites.” some were tortured under the “enhanced interrogation” program approved by the administration of former President George W. Bush.

The facility became an enduring symbol of American abuses during that era. President Barack Obama, who succeeded Bush, promised to close the plant, but he did it failed mainly due to legal technicalities and domestic political opposition.