US releases one of longest-held Guantánamo Bay detainees to Tunisia
A Tunisian national who had become one of Guantánamo Bay’s longest-held detainees has been released from the US military compound, the Pentagon announced on Monday night.
Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yazidi was transferred to his home country after being held without charge since the detention facility opened in January 2002. The 59-year-old appeared in one of the detention centre’s most iconic photographs, showing detainees kneeling in the open-air compound of Camp X-Ray.
His release comes amid a flurry of transfers this month, including three other people sent to Kenya and Malaysia. The prison’s population has dropped marginally during Joe Biden’s presidency, falling from 40 people when he took office to the current 26. More than half are now eligible for transfer.
A leaked military assessment from 2007 indicated that Pakistani authorities captured Yazidi in December 2001 near the Afghanistan border. US officials claimed he was part of a group fleeing the battle of Tora Bora and alleged ties to al-Qaida, though human rights organizations have long challenged the credibility of such claims.
A complex series of diplomatic hurdles kept Yazidi detained long after he was cleared for transfer in 2007 under both the Bush and Obama administrations. The former state department official Ian Moss attributed the delay to diplomatic challenges with Tunisia and Yazidi’s reported unwillingness to consider alternative countries for resettlement, according to the New York Times.
The facility, constructed on a US naval base in south-eastern Cuba following the “war on terror”, has drawn international condemnation throughout its existence since becoming a symbol of post-9/11 human rights abuses. Its critics have long highlighted concerns over indefinite detention without trial and controversial interrogation methods.
Throughout its 22-year history, an estimated 780 people have passed through Guantánamo’s cells. The Pentagon offered no details about arrangements for Yazidi’s return to Tunisia.
