Guantanamo Bay’s earliest captive has finally been released after more than two decades in limbo.
Ridah bin Saleh al-Yazidi was repatriated to Tunisia from the US prison in Cuba, which has long been referred to as the ‘Gulag of our times’ for its legacy of torture, degradation and indefinite detention.
Yazidi has been held at Guantanamo since it opened on January 11, 2002, and was cleared for release over a decade ago, human rights groups say.
The 59-year-old was never charged with a crime and has never been put in front of a court.
The Tunisian national was accused of being a member of Al-Qaeda, with ties to its leadership, according to a 2007 US military assessment.
But such assessments have proven unreliable and derived from torture, or false statements provided by co-detainees eager to curry favor or get better treatment, human rights groups have long argued.
Yazidi had been cleared for transfer since 2007, by both the George W Bush and Obama administrations, according to Human Rights First.
But a deal for his release was never made, and he remained in the prison for more than a decade after that decision.
His transfer is the fourth in two weeks by the Biden administration as part of efforts to reduce the military prison’s population, which held 40 people when the Democrat took office in 2020.
Yazidi was ‘determined transfer-eligible by a rigorous interagency review process’, the Pentagon said in a statement.
‘On January 31, 2024, Secretary of Defence Austin notified Congress of his intent to support this repatriation and, in consultation with our partner in Tunisia, we completed the requirements for responsible transfer,’ it added.
Located at the US military base in southeastern Cuba, the facility has held a total of 780 people.
Former Us president Barack Obama issued an executive order to close it in 2009.
But 15 years later, 26 people remain at Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon has confirmed.
Of them, 14 are eligible for transfer; three are eligible for a Periodic Review Board; seven are involved in the military commissions process; and two detainees have been convicted and sentenced by military commissions.
The camp was set up to house detainees captured during America’s so-called ‘war on terror’ after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York.
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