Guantanamo exit ruled out for 26th

MIAMI — The Guantanamo parole board has branded an Indonesian former CIA captive as a “forever prisoner,” declaring him too dangerous to release from U.S. military custody.

The Periodic Review Board said in a decision released Tuesday and dated Sept. 19. that Encep Nurjaman Hambali, with a “lengthy history as a jihadist,” has no real remorse about his “significant role in major terrorist attacks and plotting.” When he went before the board Aug. 18, he was “elusive and non-credible,” the panel wrote, offering “half truths and clear attempts to minimize and conceal his pre-detention activities.”

The decision raises to 26 the number of Guantanamo “forever prisoners” — captives declared indefinite Law of War detainees by the board created by President Barack Obama in 2011.

A March 2016 intelligence profile described Hambali, now 52, as “an operational mastermind in the Southeast Asiabased Islamic extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah” and said he helped plan the Oct. 12, 2002, car bombing of a nightclub in Bali, a popular tourist island, that killed 202 people.

The last time the Obama administration reviewed his case, a 2009 task force recommended that prosecutors consider putting him on trial. Hambali never has been charged by the U.S.