WASHINGTON (Washington Insider Magazine) – An Algerian man who had been held for over 2 decades at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility has been freed and returned to his country.
Sufyian Barhoumi was repatriated with guarantees from the Algerian authorities that he would be treated fairly and that protective measures would be taken to limit the chance that he may constitute a threat in the future, according to the Defense department.
The Pentagon did not elaborate on the safety precautions, which might include travel limitations.
In 2002, Barhoumi was apprehended in Pakistan and sent to the US military camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. According to a report by an oversight committee at the jail that authorized his release in 2016, the US decided he was affiliated with numerous extremist outfits but was not a part of the Taliban or al-Qaida.
In 2008, US officials sought to prosecute Barhoumi, but the initiative was shelved due to legal obstacles to President George W. Bush’s inaugural iteration of the military commission system.
In the final weeks of Barack Obama’s presidency, a federal judge in Washington turned down to intervene in the Pentagon’s refusal to repatriate Barhoumi, whose counsel said that he had expected his client to be released and that the prisoner’s family had started making plans for his return, including purchasing a car and a small restaurant for him to operate.
On Jan. 12, 2017, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter opposed Barhoumi’s freedom based on a range of substantive reasons shared by numerous agencies, according to the Justice Department.
According to his counsel, Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Barhoumi, who lost 4 fingers in an Afghanistan landmine explosion, volunteered to take a plea deal to any crimes in 2012 in the hopes of receiving a fixed sentence and returning to his elderly mother.
Under President Donald Trump, the attempt to reintegrate incarcerated people has stalled. According to ABC NEWS, the Biden government is aiming to reduce the number of inmates imprisoned at Guantanamo as part of a larger campaign to shut the facility.
With Barhoumi’s release, the total number of men imprisoned at the US facility in Cuba has risen to 37, with 18 of them judged eligible for resettlement or repatriation to a third nation.