Pakistani Guantanamo inmate returns after 17 years

Foreign Office confirms Saifullah Paracha reunited with his family

ISLAMABAD:

A long ordeal of a Pakistan national, who was detained in the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison facility by the US, on Saturday came to an end when he finally returned to the country.

Saifullah Paracha spent nearly 17 years at the US detention facility in Cuba and was approved for release in May last year by the American authorities.

The Foreign Office in a statement confirmed that Paracha had been released and returned home.

“The foreign ministry completed an extensive inter-agency process to facilitate repatriation of Mr Paracha,” it read.

Mr. Paracha, who was detained in Guantanamo Bay 🇺🇸 , has been released & reached 🇵🇰 on Saturday. The Foreign Ministry completed an extensive inter-agency process to facilitate repatriation of Mr. Paracha. We are glad that a citizen detained abroad is reunited with his family. https://t.co/VSTOTAbuMP

— BilawalBhuttoZardari (@BBhuttoZardari) October 29, 2022

“We are glad that a Pakistani citizen detained abroad is finally reunited with his family,” it added.

Separately Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari also shared a statement about Paracha’s release.

Paracha, now 74, was the oldest prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

According to a foreign news agency, Paracha was held on suspicion of ties to al-Qaeda but never charged with a crime. He was cleared by the prisoner review board along with two other men, said Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, who represented him at his hearing in November 2020.

As is customary, the notification did not provide a detailed reasoning for the decision and concluded that Paracha is “not a continuing threat” to the US, Sullivan-Bennis said.

Read US hands over Afghan Guantanamo detainee to Taliban

Paracha, who lived in the US and owned a property in New York, was a wealthy businessman in Pakistan.

Authorities alleged he was an al-Qaeda “facilitator” who helped two of the conspirators in the September 11 plot with a financial transaction.

He claimed that he did not know that they were members of al-Qaeda and denied any involvement in terrorism.

The US, which captured Paracha in Thailand in 2003 and held him at Guantanamo since September 2004, long asserted that it could hold detainees indefinitely without charge under the international laws of war.

In November 2020, Paracha, who suffers from a number of ailments including diabetes and a heart condition, made his eighth appearance before the review board, which was established under former US president Barack Obama to try to prevent the release of prisoners, who authorities believed might engage in anti-US hostilities upon their release.

At the time, his attorney said she was more optimistic about Paracha's prospects of release because of Joe Biden’s election as the new US president, the prisoner's ill health and developments in a legal case involving his son, Uzair.

Uzair was convicted in 2005 in a federal court in New York for providing support to terrorism, based in part on testimony from the same witnesses held at Guantanamo whom the US relied on to justify holding his father.

In March 2020, after a judge threw out those witness accounts and the US government decided not to seek a new trial, Uzair was released and sent back to Pakistan.

Saifullah was one of the 40 prisoners still held at Guantanamo, down from a peak of nearly 700 in 2003.

(With input from agencies)