Guantanamo Bay: US releases Tunisian held without charge for 22 years

The United States repatriated on Tuesday a Tunisian national who had been held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and kept at the notorious prison since 2002 without ever being charged.

The US Department of Defence said in a statement on Monday that Ridah bin Saleh al-Yazidi, 59, was finally eligible for transfer – more than 22 years after he was first brought to the facility.

Yazidi was reportedly sent to the prison the day it opened on 11 January 2002. Guantanamo houses detainees captured during the US’s so-called “war on terror” after the 9/11 attacks.

According to The New York Times, he was seized by Pakistani soldiers near the border with Afghanistan in December 2001 and suspected of being an al-Qaeda fighter.

The US never charged Yazidi with a crime, and Human Rights First reported that he had been cleared for transfer in 2007 by former President George W Bush and again in 2010 by former President Barack Obama. 

Located at the US military base in Cuba, Guantanamo operates under a legal system led by military commissions that do not guarantee the same rights as traditional US courts.

Inmates cleared for release sometimes spend years at Guantanamo as Washington looks for countries to take them after they are freed, with some governments unwilling to take them back or in.

The facility once housed nearly 800 prisoners, many of whom initially spent time at covert CIA locations known as “black sites”.

As of Monday, 26 detainees remain at Guantanamo, 14 of whom are eligible to be transferred out.

US President Joe Biden made it an early goal of his administration to close the facility, but his administration made minimal progress in releasing the prisoners held there over the past four years.

Former President Obama also promised to shut down Guantanamo when he campaigned for office, setting up the office of military commissions and the Periodic Review Board system during his tenure.