The oldest detainee at Guantanamo Bay has been freed after nearly two decades and returned to his home country of Pakistan.
Saifullah Paracha, 75, was arrested two years after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and accused of being an al Qaeda sympathizer.
Mr Paracha was suspected of financing the jihadist group, but maintained his innocence and was never charged.
A US military prison in Cuba held hundreds of suspected militants captured after the attacks.
“Mr. Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani citizen who was detained at Guantanamo Bay, has been released and has arrived in Pakistan on Saturday, October 29, 2022,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said.
The statement added that we are happy that the Pakistani national detained abroad has finally been reunited with his family.
Mr Paracha’s lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, questioned why it took so long for his client to be released.
“It’s been cleared for release for over a year… He used to sing me The Eagles’ song Hotel California, where [lyrics] you can check out but you can never leave”, Mr Stafford-Smith told JEE’s News Hour programme.
Mr. Pracha was captured in Thailand in July 2003 following a sting operation by the US FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigations].
Mr Paracha, who was educated in the US, was accused by US authorities of being in contact with some of the group’s top figures, including Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
After spending 14 months in the US military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay.
The secret US military prison is used to hold what the US describes as illegal fighters captured during its “war on terror”.
US President Joe Biden is under pressure to release prisoners without charge and move forward with trials on charges of direct links to al-Qaeda.
His administration approved Mr Paracha’s release last year, along with another Pakistani national, Abdul Rabbani, 55, and Usman Abdul Rahim Usman, 41, a Yemeni national.
Rabbani was not mentioned in the statement of the Pakistani Foreign Ministry.
Thirty-five people are still being held at Guantanamo — including Khalid Mohammed, named in the 9/11 Commission report as the “principal architect of the 9/11 attacks.”
Mr Pracha’s lawyer said he expected more prisoners to be released in the coming months.
“I still have four clients [at Guantanamo Bay], all of whom have been cleared for release,” he told JEE News, adding that it was “an embarrassment to America”.
