The longest-held Tunisian at Guantanamo Bay has been released from the U.S. military facility, the Pentagon announced Monday night.
Rida bin Saleh al-Yazidi had been held without charge since the detention center opened in January 2002 before being transferred to his home country. The 59-year-old featured in one of the detention center’s most iconic photographs, which showed detainees kneeling outside. Camp X-Ray air complex.
His release comes amid a flurry of transfers this month, including the deployment of three others to Kenya and Malaysia. The prison population has decreased slightly during President Joe Biden’s term, dropping from 40 inmates when he took office to 26 inmates now. Currently, more than half are subject to deportation.
According to a military assessment leaked in 2007, Pakistani authorities captured Yazidis near the Afghan border in December 2001. U.S. authorities have said he was part of a group fleeing the Tora Bora battle and claimed ties to al-Qaeda, but human rights groups have long disputed the veracity of those claims.
Even after being granted transfer in 2007 under the Bush and Obama administrations, Yazidi was held back for a long time by a complex series of diplomatic hurdles. According to the New York Times, former State Department official Ian Moss blamed the delay on diplomatic issues with Tunisia and the Yazidis’ reluctance to consider alternative countries for resettlement. It is said that
The facility was built on a U.S. naval base in southeastern Cuba after the War on Terror and has drawn international condemnation throughout its existence, becoming a symbol of post-9/11 human rights abuses. Critics of the system have long highlighted concerns about indefinite detention without trial and controversial interrogation methods.
An estimated 780 people have passed through Guantanamo’s cells over its 22-year history. The Pentagon did not provide details about the arrangements for Mr. Yazidi’s return to Tunisia.
