Guantanamo prisoner Majid Khan is freed

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A longtime Guantanamo Bay detainee who was interrogated at CIA black websites and detained for greater than 15 years on the most safety facility in Cuba was launched in Belize on Thursday, marking a step ahead in President Biden’s aim that shut

The resettlement of Majid Khan, who struck a cooperation settlement with the US authorities in 2012, was the primary time one of many so-called “high-value” prisoners despatched to Guantánamo from the CIA’s secret services in 2006 had been freed Attorneys for the Heart for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Jenner & Block mentioned in an announcement.

“I used to be given a second likelihood at life and I intend to make the very best of it,” Khan mentioned in an announcement launched by way of his attorneys.

The discharge caps a saga that started in 2003 when Khan, who was born in Saudi Arabia however spent a part of his youth outdoors of Baltimore, was arrested in Pakistan earlier than being subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation and different excessive measures by the hands of CIA interrogators was later imprisoned in Guantanamo.

The delay between the completion of Khan’s sentencing in March 2022 and his launch underscores the authorized and political challenges President Biden will face as he seeks to completely shut the high-profile jail, which now solely holds 34 inmates, however a robust one Image of American excesses stays after 9/11.

On February 2, the White Home confirmed the discharge of longtime Guantánamo Bay detainee Maijd Khan, who served greater than 15 years. (Video: The Washington Publish)

White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned Khan had fulfilled his obligation to cooperate. “We stay dedicated to a deliberate and thorough course of targeted on responsibly decreasing the variety of detainees,” she instructed reporters.

However quite a few obstacles stand in Biden’s approach. Whereas about 10 of the 34 inmates are dealing with fees in army courts, their circumstances have made little headway. However legal guidelines have lengthy restricted leaders by banning the switch of Guantanamo detainees to the US mainland and barring the repatriation of sure detainees.

The overwhelming majority of the almost 800 males held there have by no means been charged with a criminal offense.

Khan says he tried to undertake an American id after his household immigrated to the USA from Pakistan within the Nineties and regarded becoming a member of the Navy and dealing for a tech firm in Virginia after highschool. Later, when he returned to Pakistan, he got here underneath the affect of al-Qaeda and took half in militant conspiracies, together with wireing $50,000 to brokers who carried out a lethal bombing in Indonesia, he later described.

As a prisoner, Khan was held at a number of CIA services overseas, the place he endured harsh interrogation techniques, together with being submerged in ice water till he thought he was drowning and being hung from the ceiling, bare by his wrists. He mentioned he suffered from ongoing illnesses from this therapy, which included being force-fed after his starvation strike.

Khan’s plea deal, which bought him a lighter sentence in alternate for testifying in different circumstances, resulted in a 10-year sentence that ended final 12 months.

“I deeply remorse the issues I did a few years in the past, and I took accountability and tried to make amends,” Han mentioned in his assertion.

In an announcement, the Division of Protection thanked the Belize authorities.

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