Biden policy shift: Guantanamo inmate sent to home country

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration on Monday transferred a Guantánamo Bay detainee to his home country for the first time, a policy shift from the Trump presidency that repatriated a Moroccan man years after he was recommended for discharge.

The prisoner, Abdullatif Nasser, who’s in his mid-50s, was cleared for repatriation by a review board in July 2016 but remained at Guantánamo under President Donald Trump. In announcing his transfer Monday, the Pentagon cited the board’s determination that Nasser’s detention was no longer necessary to protect US national security, reported foreign media.

Nasser, also known as Abdul Latif Nasser, arrived Monday in Morocco, where police took him into custody and said they would investigate him on suspicion of committing terrorist acts — even though he was never charged while in Guantánamo.

The State Department said in a statement that President Joe Biden’s administration would continue “a deliberate and thorough process” to reducing the detainee population at Guantánamo “while also safeguarding the security of the United States and its allies.” A senior administration official who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations told reporters Monday that the Biden administration is engaged in that process with the aim of ultimately closing the Guantánamo Bay facility.

Of the 39 detainees remaining at Guantánamo, 10 are eligible to be transferred out, 17 are eligible to go through the review process for possible transfer, another 10 are involved in the military commission process used to prosecute detainees and two have been convicted, another senior administration official said. The Biden administration didn’t address how it would handle the ongoing effort to prosecute five men held at Guantánamo for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The detention center opened in 2002. President George W. Bush’s administration transformed what had been a sleepy Navy outpost on Cuba’s southeastern tip into a place to interrogate and imprison people suspected of links to al-Qaeda and the Taliban after Sept. 11.

The Obama administration, seeking to allay concerns that some of those released had “returned to the fight,” set up a process to ensure those repatriated or resettled in third countries no longer posed a threat. It also planned to try some of the men in federal court.

But the closure effort was thwarted when Congress barred the transfer of prisoners from Guantánamo to the US, including for prosecution or medical care. President Barack Obama ultimately released 197 prisoners. With Nasser’s transfer, the Guantánamo population stands at 39.