Biden transfers 1st detainee from Guantanamo Bay
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Monday transferred its first detainee out of Guantanamo Bay, repatriating a Moroccan man who had been recommended for discharge from the wartime prison starting in 2016 but nevertheless remained there during the Trump years.
The transfer of Abdul Latif Nasser, 56, was the first sign of a renewed effort under President Biden to winnow the population of prisoners by sending them to other countries that promise to ensure the men remain under security measures. Nasser was never charged with a crime.
The transfer process, which was pursued by the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, had atrophied under President Donald Trump. With Nasser’s departure, there are now 39 prisoners at Guantanamo, 11 of whom have been charged with war crimes. At its peak in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan, the prison complex at the U.S. naval base held about 675 men.
Far more complex policy decisions about transfers await the Biden team, including whether to transfer a mentally ill Saudi man, Mohammed alQahtani, who was tortured at Guantanamo and is considered to have been one of several candidates to be a potential 20th hijacker on Sept. 11.
The remaining 28 prisoners who have not been charged during the nearly two decades they have been in custody are held as Nasser had been — as indefinite lawofwar detainees in the armed conflict against al Qaeda. Of those, 10 have been recommended for transfer with security arrangements by a federal parolelike panel.
The Biden White House, while supporting the goal of closing the prison, has adopted a lowkey approach in the effort. Obama made it a signature policy, ordering that the prison be closed during his first year in office — and failed in the face of intense opposition from Congress.