Guantanamo doors open for inmate

THE TRUMP administration has repatriated a long-time prisoner of the Guantanamo Bay military prison to Saudi Arabia, where he will serve out the remainder of his 13-year sentence in connection with a 2002 attack on a French ship, the Pentagon said yesterday.

The transfer of Ahmed al-Darbi to Saudi custody marks the first time the Trump administration has authorised the departure of an inmate from the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which President Donald Trump has promised to keep open and said could even house new detainees.

The move was unlikely to mark a shift in administration policy regarding prisoner transfers, which Trump has suggested threaten US security.

Darbi pleaded guilty in 2014 to war crimes in relation to what military prosecutors characterised as plots to attack international ships in the Middle East. While he had already been captured by the time the French oil tanker, the MV Limburg, was attacked in October 2002, he was charged in connection with that assault. A Bulgarian crew member was killed in the attack.

The detainee is the brother-in-law of a September 11, 2001, hijacker, Khalid al-Mihdhar, who helped commandeer the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

Darbi has co-operated with US authorities. According to his attorney, Ramzi Kassem, a professor of law at the City University of New York, Darbi had taken part in more than 600 interviews and given eight days of sworn testimony as a co-operating witness.

“Although his American captors tortured him cruelly and imprisoned him without charge for many years, my client provided unprecedented co-operation to the US government and accepted responsibility for his own actions. The result for al-Darbi will be a total of 25 years in prison,” said Kassem, who has served as Darbi’s lead defence counsel since 2008.

“This is what passes for justice at Guantanamo.”

Darbi has been at Guantanamo since August 2002. Kassem welcomed the transfer, which he said would reunite his client with his family. He said Darbi would serve out the remainder of his sentence, about nine years, in Saudi custody.

In a statement provided through Kassem, Darbi said: “To leave Guantanamo is to be born again. I am deeply grateful to my country, Saudi Arabia, for welcoming back its son.”

The outlook is bleak for the 40 remaining inmates. Trump has ruled out further releases.