US President Joe Biden was criticised by several users on social media after claims emerged that he has ordered the release of some 9/11 terrorists from the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba. The rumours came after the Pentagon said in a press release on Monday (Jan 6) that it has transferred 11 Yemeni detainees from the controversial camp in Cuba to Oman.
The detainees who were transferred include Uthman Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Uthman, Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi, Khalid Ahmed Qassim, Suhayl Abdul Anam al Sharabi, Hani Saleh Rashid Abdullah, Tawfiq Nasir Awad Al-Bihani, Omar Mohammed Ali al-Rammah, Sanad Ali Yislam Al Kazimi, Hassan Muhammad Ali Bib Attash, Sharqawi Abdu Ali Al Hajj, and Abd Al-Salam Al-Hilah.
Biden had earlier vowed to shut down the Guantanamo Bay facility, with just 15 more detainees lodged there. Of these 15, three are eligible for transfer, said the press release from the Department of Defense.
<h2>Claims on social media</h2>
As soon as these reports came, some users started claiming on social media that the Biden administration had released Yemeni terrorists just days before leaving office.
One user on X wrote, &ldquo;Joe Biden has just RELEASED 11 YEMENI TERRORlSTS from Guantanamo Bay just days before leaving office.&rdquo;
Also read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/business-economy/considering-all-options-nippon-steel-may-take-us-government-to-court-over-decision-to-halt-iconic-firms-acquisition-8595138">Nippon Steel, US Steel sue Biden administration for halting multi-billion dollar merger</a>
&ldquo;Infuriating&rdquo;.
&ldquo;These terr*rists were captured in the aftermath of 9/11, and despite the rapidly deteriorating state of the Middle East, Biden decided to send them back to the field anyway,&rdquo; he added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet publive-iframes-block publive-Twitter-block" contenteditable="false" width="600" height="400" id="PL_blockquote_block-m5md0f65-srfy7y9b-vrq40vxo">
🚨 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BREAKING</a>: Joe Biden has just RELEASED 11 YEMENI TERRORlSTS from Guantanamo Bay just days before leaving office Infuriating. These terr*rists were captured in the aftermath of 9/11, and despite the rapidly deteriorating state of the Middle East, Biden decided to send them&hellip; <a href="https://t.co/42w3xIX2Y7">pic.twitter.com/42w3xIX2Y7</a>
&mdash; Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1876377410666741885?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
A second user wrote, &ldquo;Biden has done a crazy amount of damage not only America but the entire world.&rdquo;
<h2>Are these claims true?</h2>
However, these claims are not true.
The Pentagon has already clarified that one of these detainees was transferred to Oman under 2009 Executive Order 13492, and Congress was already notified about this impending move in September 2023.
Also read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/biden-bans-offshore-drilling-across-most-us-coastlines-trump-vows-reversal-8597214">Biden bans offshore drilling across most US coastlines, Trump vows reversal</a>
However, the authorities have not declared why these detainees were being transferred to Oman and under what deal. The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp was opened by former president George W Bush in 2002 to hold terrorism suspects and 'illegal enemy combatants' following the tragic 9/11 terror attack.
(With inputs from agencies)

World | Trending | The rumours began after the Pentagon said in a press release that it has transferred 11 Yemeni detainees from the controversial Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba to Oman.

US President Joe Biden was criticised by several users on social media after claims emerged that he has ordered the release of some 9/11 terrorists from the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba. The rumours came after the Pentagon said in a press release on Monday (Jan 6) that it has transferred 11 Yemeni detainees from the controversial camp in Cuba to Oman. The detainees who were transferred include Uthman Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Uthman, Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi, Khalid Ahmed Qassim, Suhayl Abdul Anam al Sharabi, Hani Saleh Rashid Abdullah, Tawfiq Nasir Awad Al-Bihani, Omar Mohammed Ali al-Rammah, Sanad Ali Yislam Al Kazimi, Hassan Muhammad Ali Bib Attash, Sharqawi Abdu Ali Al Hajj, and Abd Al-Salam Al-Hilah. Biden had earlier vowed to shut down the Guantanamo Bay facility, with just 15 more detainees lodged there. Of these 15, three are eligible for transfer, said the press release from the Department of Defense. Claims on social media As soon as these reports came, some users started claiming on social media that the Biden administration had released Yemeni terrorists just days before leaving office. One user on X wrote, “Joe Biden has just RELEASED 11 YEMENI TERRORlSTS from Guantanamo Bay just days before leaving office.” Also read: Nippon Steel, US Steel sue Biden administration for halting multi-billion dollar merger “Infuriating”. “These terr*rists were captured in the aftermath of 9/11, and despite the rapidly deteriorating state of the Middle East, Biden decided to send them back to the field anyway,” he added. 🚨 #BREAKING: Joe Biden has just RELEASED 11 YEMENI TERRORlSTS from Guantanamo Bay just days before leaving office Infuriating. These terr*rists were captured in the aftermath of 9/11, and despite the rapidly deteriorating state of the Middle East, Biden decided to send them… pic.twitter.com/42w3xIX2Y7 — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 6, 2025 A second user wrote, “Biden has done a crazy amount of damage not only America but the entire world.” Are these claims true? However, these claims are not true. The Pentagon has already clarified that one of these detainees was transferred to Oman under 2009 Executive Order 13492, and Congress was already notified about this impending move in September 2023. Also read: Biden bans offshore drilling across most US coastlines, Trump vows reversal However, the authorities have not declared why these detainees were being transferred to Oman and under what deal. The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp was opened by former president George W Bush in 2002 to hold terrorism suspects and 'illegal enemy combatants' following the tragic 9/11 terror attack. (With inputs from agencies)

Did Biden order release of 9/11 terrorists from Guantanamo Bay? Know the truth

Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the first UN special rapporteur granted access to Cuba's Guantanamo Bay detention facility has called on the US government to provide rehabilitation treatment to the men it detained in the aftermath of 9/11.

Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the first UN special rapporteur granted access to Cuba's Guantanamo Bay detention facility has called on the US government to provide rehabilitation treatment to the men it detained in the aftermath of 9/11. In an interview with The Guardian, Ní Aoláin said the US, which operated the inhumane facility, had the responsibility to redress the harms it inflicted on its Muslim torture victims. He said the Biden administration needs to repair the detainees' severe physical and psychological injuries and meet commitments under the international law. She said existing medical treatment was inefficient to deal with multiple problems such as traumatic brain injuries, permanent disabilities, sleep disorders, flashbacks and untreated post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “These men are all survivors of torture, a unique crime under international law, and in urgent need of care," she told the publication. “Torture breaks a person, it is intended to render them helpless and powerless so that they cease to function psychologically, and in my conversations both with current and former detainees I observed the harms it caused.” Ní Aoláin said the failure of the US authorities to provide medical care had a cruel, inhuman and other long-term impact on the prisoners. “Without exception, each individual I met exhibits medical conditions relating to the physical harm they experienced from rendition and torture, or profound psychological distress such as anxiety, depression, extreme trauma and suicidal ideation,” she added. “The US has some of the best torture treatment facilities and capability in the world, it exports it to others. But regrettably that hasn’t been used for the men currently detained at Guantánamo, and not a single man who has been released from the detention facility has had adequate rehabilitation.” Also watch | 20 years since the opening of Guantanamo Bay, the infamous US prison × Sorry details emerge from the report Notably, it was in February that Ní Aoláin was granted access to the detention centre where 30 men are still held today. Based on her four-day visit, she filed a comprehensive 23-page report and submitted it to the UN Human Rights Council. In the report, Ní Aoláin emphasised that while the 2001 attacks were indeed crimes against humanity, the subsequent use of torture and rendition by the US against alleged perpetrators and their associates constituted a grave breach of international human rights law Also read | First UN investigator at US detention facility Guantanamo exposes cruel treatment of detainees The report says that in every meeting the UN Special Rapporteur (SR) held with a detainee or a former detainee, she was told "with great regret" that she had arrived "too late" while referring to the systemic torture, "cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment inflicted over time". "The US government is under a continued obligation to ensure accountability, make full reparation for the injuries caused, and offer appropriate guarantees of non-repetition for violations committed post-9/ 11," the UN report said. (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE:

Treat men tortured at Guantanamo, first UN investigator to detention facility tells US

Prosecutors have opened talks with lawyers for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and his four co-defendants to negotiate a potential plea agreement that would drop the possibility of execution, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

Guilty pleas in exchange for life sentences could bring to an end the long-running case at the war court, which was set up by the George W. Bush administration and has been mired in pretrial proceedings focusing on the CIA’s torture of the defendants. Nearly a decade after the men were arraigned, the military judge has set no trial start date.

No deal is expected soon. But guilty pleas resulting in life sentences could force the Biden administration to modify its ambition of ending detention operations at Guantánamo Bay and instead rebrand it as a military prison for a few men.

In an earlier, failed attempt at such talks during the Trump administration, the accused plotters demanded that they serve their sentences at Guantánamo, where they are able to pray and eat in groups. They specifically did not want to be sent to the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, where federal inmates are held in solitary confinement up to 23 hours a day.

The five men are accused of directing and training or providing travel arrangements and money to the 19 hijackers who crashed four commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.

A plea deal would undoubtedly disappoint, if not enrage, death penalty advocates among the victims’ family members. But other family members, including those troubled by the role of U.S. torture in the case and the delays, might see it as a fitting conclusion.

The path to a trial for the accused plotters of the worst terrorist attack in the United States has been impeded by legal and logistic challenges as well as a nearly two-year closure of the court during the coronavirus pandemic.

The discussions began last week amid the latest setback. The judge, defense and prosecution teams had travelled to Guantánamo Bay for three weeks of hearings meant to address disputes over evidence, particularly showing the role of the FBI in the CIA prison network where Mohammed and his co-defendants were tortured after they were captured in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003.

But before they could start, Cheryl Bormann, the lead lawyer for one of the defendants, Walid bin Attash, asked to step down from the case. She cited an unspecified in-house investigation of her “performance and conduct” by the chief defense counsel, Brig. Gen. Jackie L. Thompson Jr. of the Army.

No details were given. But the issue forced a delay in hearings that could stretch for months and provided an opening, according to a participant in the talks between the prosecution and the defense.

A lead case prosecutor, Clayton G. Trivett Jr., wrote on Wednesday to the defense teams proposing that they discuss “whether pretrial agreements are possible for all five cases.”

“While I cannot guarantee that we will come to terms over these next two weeks,” Trivett said in an email, “putting a concerted effort focused solely on possible agreements while we are all onboard Guantánamo, where your clients and teams are present, may be our best chance of at least determining if deals can be reached.”

Within days, the five defendants and their lawyers met in the courtroom to compile an initial list of requirements for the guilty plea, starting with removing the death penalty from the case. Lawyers for the five men submitted a joint list on Monday, participants said.

Although the prosecutors have begun the negotiations, a senior Pentagon official known as the convening authority must approve any deal. That role is currently held by Col. Jeffrey D. Wood of the Arkansas National Guard, who is also a lawyer in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was appointed to the civilian job by the Trump administration. Participants said the talks were expected to continue through the month to try to reach some understandings to present to Wood.

The interim chief prosecutor, Col. George C. Kraehe of the Army, declined to comment, as did the chief defense counsel, Thompson.

A core issue is how many of the defendants besides Mohammed would serve life sentences without the possibility of parole and whether some of the accused accomplices with lesser roles in the attacks would serve shorter sentences. Lawyers for two defendants — a Saudi prisoner, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, and a Pakistani national, Ammar al-Baluchi, who is Mohammed’s nephew — have described them as ignorant of the Sept. 11 plot when they helped some of the hijackers with money transfers and travel arrangements from the United Arab Emirates.

Psychologists conducting interrogations for the CIA waterboarded Mohammed 183 times; defense lawyers have pursued an overarching theory that because of its actions, the U.S. government lost the moral and legal authority to execute the defendants. Agents also kept the five defendants nude, beat them, strung them up by their arms in chains and subjected them to rectal abuse and sleep deprivation during the three and four years they were held in the so-called CIA black sites before their transfer to Guantánamo in 2006.

As part of any plea agreement, the defendants would have to work with prosecutors, through their lawyers, on individual lengthy narratives known as a stipulation of fact — essentially a prosecution-approved admission of their crimes.

Once signed, the men could be brought to court for questioning by the trial judge, Col. Matthew N. McCall of the Air Force, on whether they cooperated willingly with the process. Under war court law, military juries — not judges — sentence defendants who plead guilty, generally from a range set in the plea agreement. The Pentagon would need to assemble a jury of U.S. officers to hear the statements and other presentations by both sides and then issue sentences, even if they are separately capped in secret pretrial agreements. That portion could span months.

People familiar with the talks said a military jury’s recent reaction to descriptions of CIA torture of another prisoner in a lesser-known case might have contributed to the willingness of prosecutors to negotiate.

In October, the jury condemned as “a stain on the moral fiber of America” the agency’s cruel treatment of Majid Khan, a confessed courier for al-Qaida, and urged the overseer of military commissions to grant clemency.

Prosecutors have opened talks with lawyers for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and his four co-defendants to negotiate a potential plea agreement that would drop the possibility of execution, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

Prosecutors have opened talks with lawyers for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and his four co-defendants to negotiate a potential plea agreement that would drop the possibility of execution, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Guilty pleas in exchange for life sentences could bring to an end the long-running case at the war court, which was set up by the George W. Bush administration and has been mired in pretrial proceedings focusing on the CIA’s torture of the defendants. Nearly a decade after the men were arraigned, the military judge has set no trial start date. No deal is expected soon. But guilty pleas resulting in life sentences could force the Biden administration to modify its ambition of ending detention operations at Guantánamo Bay and instead rebrand it as a military prison for a few men. In an earlier, failed attempt at such talks during the Trump administration, the accused plotters demanded that they serve their sentences at Guantánamo, where they are able to pray and eat in groups. They specifically did not want to be sent to the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, where federal inmates are held in solitary confinement up to 23 hours a day. The five men are accused of directing and training or providing travel arrangements and money to the 19 hijackers who crashed four commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people. A plea deal would undoubtedly disappoint, if not enrage, death penalty advocates among the victims’ family members. But other family members, including those troubled by the role of U.S. torture in the case and the delays, might see it as a fitting conclusion. The path to a trial for the accused plotters of the worst terrorist attack in the United States has been impeded by legal and logistic challenges as well as a nearly two-year closure of the court during the coronavirus pandemic. The discussions began last week amid the latest setback. The judge, defense and prosecution teams had travelled to Guantánamo Bay for three weeks of hearings meant to address disputes over evidence, particularly showing the role of the FBI in the CIA prison network where Mohammed and his co-defendants were tortured after they were captured in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003. But before they could start, Cheryl Bormann, the lead lawyer for one of the defendants, Walid bin Attash, asked to step down from the case. She cited an unspecified in-house investigation of her “performance and conduct” by the chief defense counsel, Brig. Gen. Jackie L. Thompson Jr. of the Army. No details were given. But the issue forced a delay in hearings that could stretch for months and provided an opening, according to a participant in the talks between the prosecution and the defense. A lead case prosecutor, Clayton G. Trivett Jr., wrote on Wednesday to the defense teams proposing that they discuss “whether pretrial agreements are possible for all five cases.” “While I cannot guarantee that we will come to terms over these next two weeks,” Trivett said in an email, “putting a concerted effort focused solely on possible agreements while we are all onboard Guantánamo, where your clients and teams are present, may be our best chance of at least determining if deals can be reached.” Within days, the five defendants and their lawyers met in the courtroom to compile an initial list of requirements for the guilty plea, starting with removing the death penalty from the case. Lawyers for the five men submitted a joint list on Monday, participants said. Although the prosecutors have begun the negotiations, a senior Pentagon official known as the convening authority must approve any deal. That role is currently held by Col. Jeffrey D. Wood of the Arkansas National Guard, who is also a lawyer in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was appointed to the civilian job by the Trump administration. Participants said the talks were expected to continue through the month to try to reach some understandings to present to Wood. The interim chief prosecutor, Col. George C. Kraehe of the Army, declined to comment, as did the chief defense counsel, Thompson. A core issue is how many of the defendants besides Mohammed would serve life sentences without the possibility of parole and whether some of the accused accomplices with lesser roles in the attacks would serve shorter sentences. Lawyers for two defendants — a Saudi prisoner, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, and a Pakistani national, Ammar al-Baluchi, who is Mohammed’s nephew — have described them as ignorant of the Sept. 11 plot when they helped some of the hijackers with money transfers and travel arrangements from the United Arab Emirates. Psychologists conducting interrogations for the CIA waterboarded Mohammed 183 times; defense lawyers have pursued an overarching theory that because of its actions, the U.S. government lost the moral and legal authority to execute the defendants. Agents also kept the five defendants nude, beat them, strung them up by their arms in chains and subjected them to rectal abuse and sleep deprivation during the three and four years they were held in the so-called CIA black sites before their transfer to Guantánamo in 2006. As part of any plea agreement, the defendants would have to work with prosecutors, through their lawyers, on individual lengthy narratives known as a stipulation of fact — essentially a prosecution-approved admission of their crimes. Once signed, the men could be brought to court for questioning by the trial judge, Col. Matthew N. McCall of the Air Force, on whether they cooperated willingly with the process. Under war court law, military juries — not judges — sentence defendants who plead guilty, generally from a range set in the plea agreement. The Pentagon would need to assemble a jury of U.S. officers to hear the statements and other presentations by both sides and then issue sentences, even if they are separately capped in secret pretrial agreements. That portion could span months. People familiar with the talks said a military jury’s recent reaction to descriptions of CIA torture of another prisoner in a lesser-known case might have contributed to the willingness of prosecutors to negotiate. In October, the jury condemned as “a stain on the moral fiber of America” the agency’s cruel treatment of Majid Khan, a confessed courier for al-Qaida, and urged the overseer of military commissions to grant clemency.

Sept. 11 prosecutors are in plea talks that could avert a death penalty trial

From torture to deeply contentious political issue: Guantanamo Bay completes 20 years

A Somali man who has been held at Guantánamo Bay as a high-value prisoner was approved for transfer with security assurances, according to a document obtained Monday, making him the first detainee who was brought there from a CIA black site to be recommended for release.

Guled Hassan Duran, 47, received word of the decision on Monday morning, the eve of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the detention facility at the US&nbsp;naval base in Cuba. He became the 14th or 15th of the 39 detainees still at Guantánamo with approval for transfer once US&nbsp;diplomats find countries to accept them with security guarantees that satisfy Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Duran was captured in Djibouti in 2004, spent about 900 days in CIA custody and has been held in classified detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay without charge since September 2006. He cannot return to his homeland under a congressional prohibition on the transfer of Guantánamo detainees to Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

John F. Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on the case or on any approvals that the interagency Periodic Review Board had made but not announced.

“The administration remains dedicated to closing the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay,” he said. “Nothing has changed about that.”

Duran is unlikely to go anywhere soon. The Biden administration has transferred only one detainee from the prison, a Moroccan man whose repatriation negotiations were begun during the Obama administration, put on hold during the Trump administration and completed in July. Once a deal is reached for any of the cleared prisoners, the secretary of defence has to sign off on it and Congress has to be provided 30 days’ notice.

Kirby also declined to discuss the case of Moath al-Alwi, a Yemeni man in his mid-40s whose sister posted on Facebook that he had also been notified that he was approved for transfer. “We ask Allah to release them all,” she said.

Al-Alwi has become as one of Guantánamo’s best-recognized prison artists. In 2018, replicas of sailing ships that he fashioned from found objects in the cellblocks were the centerpieces of “Ode to the Sea,” an art show at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. Soon after, the Defense Department declared art created by Guantánamo detainees property of the U.S. government and prohibited prisoners from giving pieces to their lawyers or anyone else. Prison staff also stopped showcasing his art in news media visits.

His lawyer, Beth D. Jacob, declined to comment.

Duran’s lawyer, Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said he was informed of the approval after his client was notified of the board’s decision on Monday morning. The document, dated November&nbsp;10, pledged “vigorous efforts will be undertaken to identify a suitable transfer location” that is “outside the United States, subject to appropriate security and human treatment assurances.”

Duran lived in Sweden as a teenage refugee, has relatives in Canada and has “good options” for possible resettlement countries, Kadidal said. He described him as “smart and resourceful and has the experience of living in several different countries.”

The other high-value detainee who could become the first to go is Majid Khan, a US-educated Pakistani man who pleaded guilty to war crimes charges and was sentenced to 26 years in prison starting in 2012. But last year, Khan and his lawyers reached a secret deal with a senior Pentagon official to end his sentence as early as next month and no later than February 2025.

Under that scenario, US&nbsp;diplomats would have to negotiate his resettlement or repatriation as well.

Word of the approvals for more transfers came at a time of rising COVID-19 cases at the base, which on Monday forced the Navy hospital there to curtail services.

On Monday, the hospital spokeswoman, Dawn C. Grimes, reported that it had 88 “confirmed, active” cases, and 455 people in quarantine or isolation -&nbsp;including some who had come to the base unvaccinated and required a 14-day quarantine.

Two of the residents who tested positive for the virus were minors.

None have required hospitalization, but all were experiencing symptoms, Grimes said, including headaches, fever, shortness of breath and cough. “Currently, no cases are categorized as serious,” she said.

The base has an 85% vaccination rate, and limited testing capabilities for the virus. Grimes said that the base’s tests do not identify variants, but that “through observation and analysis,” the staff has concluded that the cases are of the fast-spreading omicron variant.

The hospital was clearly feeling the pinch of the sudden rise, from 17 cases between Dec. 1 and Jan. 4 to 88 at once on Monday.

The hospital has been offering curbside testing and walk-up laboratory services, and care at its clinic has been limited to urgent and acute cases.

“An increased number of hospital staff are needed to support COVID-19 mitigation efforts,” a statement issued by the hospital said. It added that the hospital pharmacy, the only one on base, shifted to drive-up service only, ending at noon.

The Pentagon’s Southern Command, which runs the prison, confirmed Monday that it was still staffing the operation of 39 detainees with 1,500 personnel, both soldiers and Defense Department contractors.

It has not disclosed how many of the 900 unvaccinated base residents were at the detention operation, and whether detainees and the mostly National Guard prison guards were in quarantine.

A Somali man who has been held at Guantánamo Bay as a high-value prisoner was approved for transfer with security assurances, according to a document obtained Monday, making him the first detainee who was brought there from a CIA black site to be recommended for release.

A Somali man who has been held at Guantánamo Bay as a high-value prisoner was approved for transfer with security assurances, according to a document obtained Monday, making him the first detainee who was brought there from a CIA black site to be recommended for release. Guled Hassan Duran, 47, received word of the decision on Monday morning, the eve of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the detention facility at the US naval base in Cuba. He became the 14th or 15th of the 39 detainees still at Guantánamo with approval for transfer once US diplomats find countries to accept them with security guarantees that satisfy Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Duran was captured in Djibouti in 2004, spent about 900 days in CIA custody and has been held in classified detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay without charge since September 2006. He cannot return to his homeland under a congressional prohibition on the transfer of Guantánamo detainees to Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen. John F. Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to comment on the case or on any approvals that the interagency Periodic Review Board had made but not announced. “The administration remains dedicated to closing the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay,” he said. “Nothing has changed about that.” Duran is unlikely to go anywhere soon. The Biden administration has transferred only one detainee from the prison, a Moroccan man whose repatriation negotiations were begun during the Obama administration, put on hold during the Trump administration and completed in July. Once a deal is reached for any of the cleared prisoners, the secretary of defence has to sign off on it and Congress has to be provided 30 days’ notice. Kirby also declined to discuss the case of Moath al-Alwi, a Yemeni man in his mid-40s whose sister posted on Facebook that he had also been notified that he was approved for transfer. “We ask Allah to release them all,” she said. Al-Alwi has become as one of Guantánamo’s best-recognized prison artists. In 2018, replicas of sailing ships that he fashioned from found objects in the cellblocks were the centerpieces of “Ode to the Sea,” an art show at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. Soon after, the Defense Department declared art created by Guantánamo detainees property of the U.S. government and prohibited prisoners from giving pieces to their lawyers or anyone else. Prison staff also stopped showcasing his art in news media visits. His lawyer, Beth D. Jacob, declined to comment. Duran’s lawyer, Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said he was informed of the approval after his client was notified of the board’s decision on Monday morning. The document, dated November 10, pledged “vigorous efforts will be undertaken to identify a suitable transfer location” that is “outside the United States, subject to appropriate security and human treatment assurances.” Duran lived in Sweden as a teenage refugee, has relatives in Canada and has “good options” for possible resettlement countries, Kadidal said. He described him as “smart and resourceful and has the experience of living in several different countries.” The other high-value detainee who could become the first to go is Majid Khan, a US-educated Pakistani man who pleaded guilty to war crimes charges and was sentenced to 26 years in prison starting in 2012. But last year, Khan and his lawyers reached a secret deal with a senior Pentagon official to end his sentence as early as next month and no later than February 2025. Under that scenario, US diplomats would have to negotiate his resettlement or repatriation as well. Word of the approvals for more transfers came at a time of rising COVID-19 cases at the base, which on Monday forced the Navy hospital there to curtail services. On Monday, the hospital spokeswoman, Dawn C. Grimes, reported that it had 88 “confirmed, active” cases, and 455 people in quarantine or isolation - including some who had come to the base unvaccinated and required a 14-day quarantine. Two of the residents who tested positive for the virus were minors. None have required hospitalization, but all were experiencing symptoms, Grimes said, including headaches, fever, shortness of breath and cough. “Currently, no cases are categorized as serious,” she said. The base has an 85% vaccination rate, and limited testing capabilities for the virus. Grimes said that the base’s tests do not identify variants, but that “through observation and analysis,” the staff has concluded that the cases are of the fast-spreading omicron variant. The hospital was clearly feeling the pinch of the sudden rise, from 17 cases between Dec. 1 and Jan. 4 to 88 at once on Monday. The hospital has been offering curbside testing and walk-up laboratory services, and care at its clinic has been limited to urgent and acute cases. “An increased number of hospital staff are needed to support COVID-19 mitigation efforts,” a statement issued by the hospital said. It added that the hospital pharmacy, the only one on base, shifted to drive-up service only, ending at noon. The Pentagon’s Southern Command, which runs the prison, confirmed Monday that it was still staffing the operation of 39 detainees with 1,500 personnel, both soldiers and Defense Department contractors. It has not disclosed how many of the 900 unvaccinated base residents were at the detention operation, and whether detainees and the mostly National Guard prison guards were in quarantine.

Guantánamo panel approves transfer of first high value detainee

A suburban Baltimore high school graduate turned al-Qaida courier, speaking to a military jury for the first time, gave a detailed account Thursday of the brutal forced feedings, crude waterboarding and other physical and sexual abuse he endured during his 2003 to 2006 detention in the CIA’s overseas prison network.

Appearing in open court, Majid Khan, 41, became the first former prisoner of the black sites to openly describe, anywhere, the violent and cruel “enhanced interrogation techniques” that agents used to extract information and confessions from terrorism suspects.

For more than two hours, he spoke about dungeonlike conditions, humiliating stretches of nudity with only a hood on his head, sometimes while his arms were chained in ways that made sleep impossible, and being intentionally nearly drowned in icy cold water in tubs at two sites, once while a CIA interrogator counted down from 10 before water was poured into his nose and mouth.

Soon after his capture in Pakistan in March 2003, Khan said, he cooperated with his captors, telling them everything he knew, with the hope of release. “Instead, the more I cooperated, the more I was tortured,” he said.

The dramatic accounting capped a day in which eight U.S. military officers were selected to serve on a jury, which will deliberate Friday on his official sentence in the range of 25 to 40 years, starting from his guilty plea in February 2012.

But the sentence is largely symbolic, a military commission requirement

Unknown to the jurors, Khan and his lawyers reached a secret deal this year with a senior Pentagon official in which his actual sentence could end as early as February and no later than February 2025 because Khan had become a government cooperator upon pleading guilty.

Jurors were told that in 2012 Khan pleaded guilty to terrorism charges, including murder in violation of the law of war, for delivering $50,000 of al-Qaida money from Pakistan to an al-Qaida affiliate in early 2003. The money was used in a deadly bombing of a Marriott hotel in August 2003, while Khan was a prisoner of the CIA. He has said he did not know how the money would be used.

He also admitted to plotting a number of other crimes with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, notably by wearing a suicide vest in a failed effort in 2002 to assassinate the president of Pakistan at the time, Pervez Musharraf, a U.S. ally in the war on terrorism.

Sentencing was delayed for nearly a decade to give Khan time and opportunity to cooperate with federal and military prosecutors, so far behind the scenes, in federal and military terrorism cases. In the intervening years, prosecutors and defence lawyers clashed in court filings over who would be called to testify about Khan’s abuse in CIA custody, and how.

In court Thursday, Khan read from a carefully worded 39-page account that did not identify CIA agents or the countries and foreign intelligence agencies that had a role in his secret detention at black sites — information that is protected at the national security court. He expressed remorse for hurting people through his embrace of radical Islam and al-Qaida, but also found a way around a labyrinth of U.S. intelligence classifications to realize a decade-long ambition to tell the world what U.S. agents had done to him.

“To those who tortured me, I forgive you,” he said, noting that while he was in custody he had rejected al-Qaida, terrorism, “violence and hatred.”

“I hope in the day of judgment that Allah will do the same for you and for me. I ask forgiveness from those whom I have wronged and I have hurt.”

It was an emotional day for Khan. His father, Ali, and a sister, both U.S. citizens, sat behind the court in a gallery, seeing him in person for the first time since he left the United States and joined al-Qaida after the Sept. 11 attacks. They were 50 feet from him and did not seem to recognize the now balding middle-age man with a gray goatee when he first entered the court.

After many minutes he caught their eyes, then waved. His father looked startled. Khan craned his neck frequently during the proceedings to see his family — and at one point formed a heart with his hands.

He juxtaposed his remarks of contrition with previously unheard details of what happened to him at the hands of the United States, the country his parents and siblings adopted by becoming citizens even as he did not.

His father wept through long stretches of the descriptions, at times hiding his head in his hands, while his sister, also tearful, tried to comfort him. The jury of Marine, Navy and Army officers watched and listened soberly, but displayed no emotion.

He received beatings while nude and spent long stretches in chains — at times shackled to a wall and crouching “like a dog,” he said, or with his arms extended high above his head and chained to a beam inside his cell. He was kept in darkness and dragged, hooded and shackled, his head slamming into floors, walls and stairs as he was moved between cells.

Before the CIA moved him from one prison to another, he said, a medic inserted an enema and then put him in a diaper held in place by duct tape so he would not need a bathroom break during flights. Guards moving him would hood him, aside from the time he had his face duct taped.

While held in a Muslim country, he said, his captors allowed him to pray. But at times the Americans did not.

Earlier accounts released by his lawyers said he was so sleep deprived for a time that he began to hallucinate. He described the experience: images of a cow and a giant lizard advancing on him inside a cell while he was chained to a beam above his head. He tried to kick them away but lost his balance, causing his chains to jerk him.

Khan gained attention with the release of a 2014 study of the CIA program by the Senate Intelligence Committee that said, after he refused to eat, his captors “infused” a puree of his lunch through his anus. The CIA called it rectal refeeding. Khan called it rape.

The CIA pumped water up the rectum of prisoners who would not follow a command to drink. Khan said this was done to him with “green garden hoses. They connected one end to the faucet, put the other in my rectum and they turned on the water.” He said he lost control of his bowels after those episodes and, to this day, has haemorrhoids.

He spoke about failed and sadistic responses to his hunger strikes and other acts of rebellion. Medics would roughly insert a feeding tube up his nose and down the back of his throat. He would try to bite it off and, in at least one instance, he said, a CIA officer used a plunger to force food inside his stomach, a technique that caused stomach cramps and diarrhoea.

The intelligence agency declined Thursday to comment on the descriptions offered in the hearing but noted that the CIA’s detention and interrogation program ended in 2009.

Lawyers sought permission to bring Khan’s wife and daughter, who was born after his capture, to the court, but the commander of the military’s Southern Command, which oversees prison operations, opposed their attendance. Like Khan, who acquired permanent resident status as a boy in the United States but never became a U.S. citizen, his wife and daughter are citizens of Pakistan.

Khan began by telling the jury that he was born in Saudi Arabia and was raised in Pakistan, the youngest son of eight siblings, until his father acquired a gas station in Maryland and moved the family to the United States when he was 16. He went on to graduate from a high school in suburban Baltimore and was working for a telecommunications contractor that managed the Pentagon phone system at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks.

He described the attacks and the death of his mother months earlier in 2001 as a turning point in his life.

Until then, he said, he had straddled two worlds: his traditional Pakistani family life and that of an American teenager who “smoked weed occasionally and had my share of girlfriends,” both of which he hid from his mother. After she died, he said, he was drawn to practicing Islam.

He rejected the explanation that Muslims had carried out the attack, “thinking that this was just another way the universe was kicking me while I was down, making me question my faith in Islam.”

During a family trip to Pakistan in 2002 — in which both he and his sister found spouses in arranged marriages — he encountered relatives, cousins and an uncle who had in earlier years joined the jihad in Afghanistan and had ties to al-Qaida.

“I was lost and vulnerable, and they went after me,” he said, including by showing him “propaganda videos” about the detention operation at Guantánamo, the base where he would be transferred for trial in 2006.

“I went willingly to al-Qaida,” he said. “I was stupid, so incredibly stupid. But they promised to relieve my pain and purify my sins. They promised to redeem me, and I believed them.”

A suburban Baltimore high school graduate turned al-Qaida courier, speaking to a military jury for the first time, gave a detailed account Thursday of the brutal forced feedings, crude waterboarding and other physical and sexual abuse he endured during his 2003 to 2006 detention in the CIA’s overseas prison network.

A suburban Baltimore high school graduate turned al-Qaida courier, speaking to a military jury for the first time, gave a detailed account Thursday of the brutal forced feedings, crude waterboarding and other physical and sexual abuse he endured during his 2003 to 2006 detention in the CIA’s overseas prison network. Appearing in open court, Majid Khan, 41, became the first former prisoner of the black sites to openly describe, anywhere, the violent and cruel “enhanced interrogation techniques” that agents used to extract information and confessions from terrorism suspects. For more than two hours, he spoke about dungeonlike conditions, humiliating stretches of nudity with only a hood on his head, sometimes while his arms were chained in ways that made sleep impossible, and being intentionally nearly drowned in icy cold water in tubs at two sites, once while a CIA interrogator counted down from 10 before water was poured into his nose and mouth. Soon after his capture in Pakistan in March 2003, Khan said, he cooperated with his captors, telling them everything he knew, with the hope of release. “Instead, the more I cooperated, the more I was tortured,” he said. The dramatic accounting capped a day in which eight U.S. military officers were selected to serve on a jury, which will deliberate Friday on his official sentence in the range of 25 to 40 years, starting from his guilty plea in February 2012. But the sentence is largely symbolic, a military commission requirement Unknown to the jurors, Khan and his lawyers reached a secret deal this year with a senior Pentagon official in which his actual sentence could end as early as February and no later than February 2025 because Khan had become a government cooperator upon pleading guilty. Jurors were told that in 2012 Khan pleaded guilty to terrorism charges, including murder in violation of the law of war, for delivering $50,000 of al-Qaida money from Pakistan to an al-Qaida affiliate in early 2003. The money was used in a deadly bombing of a Marriott hotel in August 2003, while Khan was a prisoner of the CIA. He has said he did not know how the money would be used. He also admitted to plotting a number of other crimes with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, notably by wearing a suicide vest in a failed effort in 2002 to assassinate the president of Pakistan at the time, Pervez Musharraf, a U.S. ally in the war on terrorism. Sentencing was delayed for nearly a decade to give Khan time and opportunity to cooperate with federal and military prosecutors, so far behind the scenes, in federal and military terrorism cases. In the intervening years, prosecutors and defence lawyers clashed in court filings over who would be called to testify about Khan’s abuse in CIA custody, and how. In court Thursday, Khan read from a carefully worded 39-page account that did not identify CIA agents or the countries and foreign intelligence agencies that had a role in his secret detention at black sites — information that is protected at the national security court. He expressed remorse for hurting people through his embrace of radical Islam and al-Qaida, but also found a way around a labyrinth of U.S. intelligence classifications to realize a decade-long ambition to tell the world what U.S. agents had done to him. “To those who tortured me, I forgive you,” he said, noting that while he was in custody he had rejected al-Qaida, terrorism, “violence and hatred.” “I hope in the day of judgment that Allah will do the same for you and for me. I ask forgiveness from those whom I have wronged and I have hurt.” It was an emotional day for Khan. His father, Ali, and a sister, both U.S. citizens, sat behind the court in a gallery, seeing him in person for the first time since he left the United States and joined al-Qaida after the Sept. 11 attacks. They were 50 feet from him and did not seem to recognize the now balding middle-age man with a gray goatee when he first entered the court. After many minutes he caught their eyes, then waved. His father looked startled. Khan craned his neck frequently during the proceedings to see his family — and at one point formed a heart with his hands. He juxtaposed his remarks of contrition with previously unheard details of what happened to him at the hands of the United States, the country his parents and siblings adopted by becoming citizens even as he did not. His father wept through long stretches of the descriptions, at times hiding his head in his hands, while his sister, also tearful, tried to comfort him. The jury of Marine, Navy and Army officers watched and listened soberly, but displayed no emotion. He received beatings while nude and spent long stretches in chains — at times shackled to a wall and crouching “like a dog,” he said, or with his arms extended high above his head and chained to a beam inside his cell. He was kept in darkness and dragged, hooded and shackled, his head slamming into floors, walls and stairs as he was moved between cells. Before the CIA moved him from one prison to another, he said, a medic inserted an enema and then put him in a diaper held in place by duct tape so he would not need a bathroom break during flights. Guards moving him would hood him, aside from the time he had his face duct taped. While held in a Muslim country, he said, his captors allowed him to pray. But at times the Americans did not. Earlier accounts released by his lawyers said he was so sleep deprived for a time that he began to hallucinate. He described the experience: images of a cow and a giant lizard advancing on him inside a cell while he was chained to a beam above his head. He tried to kick them away but lost his balance, causing his chains to jerk him. Khan gained attention with the release of a 2014 study of the CIA program by the Senate Intelligence Committee that said, after he refused to eat, his captors “infused” a puree of his lunch through his anus. The CIA called it rectal refeeding. Khan called it rape. The CIA pumped water up the rectum of prisoners who would not follow a command to drink. Khan said this was done to him with “green garden hoses. They connected one end to the faucet, put the other in my rectum and they turned on the water.” He said he lost control of his bowels after those episodes and, to this day, has haemorrhoids. He spoke about failed and sadistic responses to his hunger strikes and other acts of rebellion. Medics would roughly insert a feeding tube up his nose and down the back of his throat. He would try to bite it off and, in at least one instance, he said, a CIA officer used a plunger to force food inside his stomach, a technique that caused stomach cramps and diarrhoea. The intelligence agency declined Thursday to comment on the descriptions offered in the hearing but noted that the CIA’s detention and interrogation program ended in 2009. Lawyers sought permission to bring Khan’s wife and daughter, who was born after his capture, to the court, but the commander of the military’s Southern Command, which oversees prison operations, opposed their attendance. Like Khan, who acquired permanent resident status as a boy in the United States but never became a U.S. citizen, his wife and daughter are citizens of Pakistan. Khan began by telling the jury that he was born in Saudi Arabia and was raised in Pakistan, the youngest son of eight siblings, until his father acquired a gas station in Maryland and moved the family to the United States when he was 16. He went on to graduate from a high school in suburban Baltimore and was working for a telecommunications contractor that managed the Pentagon phone system at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks. He described the attacks and the death of his mother months earlier in 2001 as a turning point in his life. Until then, he said, he had straddled two worlds: his traditional Pakistani family life and that of an American teenager who “smoked weed occasionally and had my share of girlfriends,” both of which he hid from his mother. After she died, he said, he was drawn to practicing Islam. He rejected the explanation that Muslims had carried out the attack, “thinking that this was just another way the universe was kicking me while I was down, making me question my faith in Islam.” During a family trip to Pakistan in 2002 — in which both he and his sister found spouses in arranged marriages — he encountered relatives, cousins and an uncle who had in earlier years joined the jihad in Afghanistan and had ties to al-Qaida. “I was lost and vulnerable, and they went after me,” he said, including by showing him “propaganda videos” about the detention operation at Guantánamo, the base where he would be transferred for trial in 2006. “I went willingly to al-Qaida,” he said. “I was stupid, so incredibly stupid. But they promised to relieve my pain and purify my sins. They promised to redeem me, and I believed them.”

For first time in public, a detainee describes torture at CIA black sites

The Biden administration on Monday transferred its first detainee out of Guantánamo 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 the man, Abdul Latif Nasser, 56, was the first sign of a renewed effort under President Joe 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 Guantánamo, 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 al-Qahtani, who was tortured at Guantánamo and is considered to have been one of several candidates to be a potential 20th hijacker on 9/11.

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 law-of-war detainees in the armed conflict against al-Qaida. Of those, 10 have been recommended for transfer with security arrangements by a federal parole-like panel.

The Biden White House, while supporting the goal of closing the prison, has adopted a low-key approach in that 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. Biden and his aides have sought to avoid igniting the same kind of backlash by working quietly to begin reducing the prison population again.

“The United States is grateful to the Kingdom of Morocco for its willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility,” a senior administration official said Sunday, while the transfer was underway, and so declined to be identified by name. The official said the White House was “dedicated to a deliberate and thorough process of responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.”

Military intelligence officials have cast Nasser as a former Taliban fighter who battled the invading US&nbsp;forces in the Tora Bora mountains in late 2001. He told an interagency panel through a representative five years ago that he “deeply regrets his actions of the past,” and he was approved for release by the government panel on July 11, 2016, on the condition that he be sent only to his native Morocco with security assurances from its government.

Details of such arrangements are not public, but in the Obama years they typically included not letting the former detainee travel abroad for several years and a commitment to monitor him and to share information with the U.S. government about him.

U.S. forces delivered Nasser to Moroccan government custody early Monday. His attorney, Thomas Anthony Durkin of Chicago, said he was being held at a police station in the Casablanca area and that they expected him to be reunited with his family in coming days.

The Moroccan national news agency, MAP, said he was under investigation “for his alleged involvement in the perpetration of terror acts.” Detainees who were repatriated to Morocco in earlier administrations were similarly investigated, and some were prosecuted.

Nasser’s family members in Casablanca have pledged to support him by finding him work in his brother’s swimming pool cleaning business, Durkin said.

Durkin, who has represented Nasser for more than a decade, noted that Nasser was on the verge of release in early 2017 when the Trump administration halted all transfers and closed the office at the State Department that negotiated security arrangements for such deals.

Only one detainee left the prison during the Trump years, and under very different circumstances: A confessed al-Qaida terrorist was repatriated to Saudi Arabia to serve out a prison sentence imposed by a U.S. military commission, in accordance with an earlier plea agreement.

In a statement, Durkin called the last four years of Nasser’s 19-year detention “collateral damage of the Trump administration’s and zealous Republican war-on-terror hawks’ raw politics,” adding, “If this were a wrongful conviction case in Cook County, it would be worth $20 million.”

“We applaud the Biden administration for causing no further harm,” he said.

The Biden administration did not renegotiate the Obama-era agreement to repatriate Nasser, the senior official said, but the State Department did need “to reaffirm” the terms of the transfer agreement with Morocco. They were not disclosed.

A public radio personality with a similar name, Latif Nasser, now of the public radio program “Radiolab,” devoted a six-part audio series to questions about whether his near-namesake’s activities, including a stint at an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, merited two decades of U.S. military detention.

Nasser, the Guantánamo detainee, had been captured in 2001 by Pakistani security forces, which turned him over to the US&nbsp;military.

As part of its low-key approach, the Biden team has not revived the Obama-era position of a special envoy to travel the world negotiating deals for other countries to take in lower-level detainees. Instead, regional diplomats and career employees in the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism handled talks with the Moroccan government, according to officials familiar with the matter.

“We are trying to find a way to act on each individual case,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a human rights discussion in Paris on June 25. “In certain cases you need to find a country that is ready to welcome the person in question.”

Once a country is identified, he said, “we must have a guarantee that the rights of these people will be protected in that country. That’s not easy, either.”

On Monday, State Department spokesman Ned Price praised the Moroccan government for taking custody of Nasser and used the opportunity to urge other countries — which he did not name — to repatriate their citizens who were captured in Syria or Iraq in the conflict against the Islamic State group. Many European countries have hesitated to take responsibility for handling their nationals, leaving them in the hands of Kurdish fighters.

“Morocco’s leadership in facilitating Nasser’s repatriation, alongside its past willingness to return its foreign terrorist fighters from northeast Syria, should encourage other nations to repatriate their citizens who have traveled to fight for terrorist organizations abroad,” Price said.

The Biden administration has reinvigorated a parole-like process that was established in the Obama years to consider each Guantánamo detainee who was not charged with crimes, to decide whether to recommend turning him over to the custody of another country. The interagency Periodic Review Board has announced five decisions since Biden took office, and all of those detainees were approved for transfers — including the oldest man held at Guantánamo, a 73-year-old Pakistani with heart disease and other geriatric ailments.

The panel has representatives from six national security agencies, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the Department of Homeland Security, but a recommendation for transfers does not assure release. The State Department must still come up with a transfer deal, and the defense secretary must personally approve it and provide notice to Congress.

The board also held a hearing May 18 on whether to recommend the transfer of the Saudi prisoner who was tortured at Guantánamo, al-Qahtani, but has not announced a decision.

He has a separate lawsuit pending in federal court over whether his psychiatric condition, acute schizophrenia, justifies repatriating him to medical care in Saudi Arabia because he cannot receive adequate care at the naval base. As part of that lawsuit, his lawyers obtained a court order to have a panel of doctors, including two non-American ones, examine him.

The Justice Department during the Trump administration had opposed that lawsuit, and days before Trump left office his Army secretary changed a regulation to try to disqualify all Guantánamo prisoners, notably al-Qahtani, from the possibility of a court-ordered independent examination by outside doctors.

Some Democrats in Congress, signalling impatience at the pace of efforts to close the prison, have proposed legislation in the Appropriations Committee that would defund the detention operation at Guantánamo, which has been estimated to cost more than $13 million per prisoner per year.

Doing so, however, would require finding a place for the remaining 39 detainees to go. And even if the transfer of Nasser to Morocco turns out to be the first of a flurry, transfers of lower-level detainees alone will not close the prison.

Some prisoners would have to be brought to the United States, potentially to a military detention setting, notably Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has yet to go on trial as the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Current federal law dating to early 2011 forbids such transfers. The Biden White House’s 2022 budget proposal would restore presidential authority to transfer Guantánamo detainees to a mainland prison facility. But that would be up to Congress.

Republicans and some Democrats have opposed the transfer of Mohammed and the others to detention in the United States and sought to stoke fears that giving them a trial on US&nbsp;soil or simply detaining them in the mainland would be more of a danger to national security. Opponents of the restrictions say that the federal government already holds many convicted terrorists on domestic soil safely and that bringing detainees from Guantánamo to similar detention would be no different.

In a sign that such political messaging may soon return, on May 25, eight Republican senators wrote Biden opposing his intent to close the detention center through transfers.

“The remaining 40 detainees are all high risk,” the senators wrote.

Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma led the effort. The others who signed it were Marsha Blackburn, Kevin Cramer, Ted Cruz, Steve Daines, James Inhofe, Jerry Moran and Thom Tillis.

The Biden administration on Monday transferred its first detainee out of Guantánamo 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 Biden administration on Monday transferred its first detainee out of Guantánamo 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 the man, Abdul Latif Nasser, 56, was the first sign of a renewed effort under President Joe 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 Guantánamo, 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 al-Qahtani, who was tortured at Guantánamo and is considered to have been one of several candidates to be a potential 20th hijacker on 9/11. 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 law-of-war detainees in the armed conflict against al-Qaida. Of those, 10 have been recommended for transfer with security arrangements by a federal parole-like panel. The Biden White House, while supporting the goal of closing the prison, has adopted a low-key approach in that 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. Biden and his aides have sought to avoid igniting the same kind of backlash by working quietly to begin reducing the prison population again. “The United States is grateful to the Kingdom of Morocco for its willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility,” a senior administration official said Sunday, while the transfer was underway, and so declined to be identified by name. The official said the White House was “dedicated to a deliberate and thorough process of responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.” Military intelligence officials have cast Nasser as a former Taliban fighter who battled the invading US forces in the Tora Bora mountains in late 2001. He told an interagency panel through a representative five years ago that he “deeply regrets his actions of the past,” and he was approved for release by the government panel on July 11, 2016, on the condition that he be sent only to his native Morocco with security assurances from its government. Details of such arrangements are not public, but in the Obama years they typically included not letting the former detainee travel abroad for several years and a commitment to monitor him and to share information with the U.S. government about him. U.S. forces delivered Nasser to Moroccan government custody early Monday. His attorney, Thomas Anthony Durkin of Chicago, said he was being held at a police station in the Casablanca area and that they expected him to be reunited with his family in coming days. The Moroccan national news agency, MAP, said he was under investigation “for his alleged involvement in the perpetration of terror acts.” Detainees who were repatriated to Morocco in earlier administrations were similarly investigated, and some were prosecuted. Nasser’s family members in Casablanca have pledged to support him by finding him work in his brother’s swimming pool cleaning business, Durkin said. Durkin, who has represented Nasser for more than a decade, noted that Nasser was on the verge of release in early 2017 when the Trump administration halted all transfers and closed the office at the State Department that negotiated security arrangements for such deals. Only one detainee left the prison during the Trump years, and under very different circumstances: A confessed al-Qaida terrorist was repatriated to Saudi Arabia to serve out a prison sentence imposed by a U.S. military commission, in accordance with an earlier plea agreement. In a statement, Durkin called the last four years of Nasser’s 19-year detention “collateral damage of the Trump administration’s and zealous Republican war-on-terror hawks’ raw politics,” adding, “If this were a wrongful conviction case in Cook County, it would be worth $20 million.” “We applaud the Biden administration for causing no further harm,” he said. The Biden administration did not renegotiate the Obama-era agreement to repatriate Nasser, the senior official said, but the State Department did need “to reaffirm” the terms of the transfer agreement with Morocco. They were not disclosed. A public radio personality with a similar name, Latif Nasser, now of the public radio program “Radiolab,” devoted a six-part audio series to questions about whether his near-namesake’s activities, including a stint at an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, merited two decades of U.S. military detention. Nasser, the Guantánamo detainee, had been captured in 2001 by Pakistani security forces, which turned him over to the US military. As part of its low-key approach, the Biden team has not revived the Obama-era position of a special envoy to travel the world negotiating deals for other countries to take in lower-level detainees. Instead, regional diplomats and career employees in the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism handled talks with the Moroccan government, according to officials familiar with the matter. “We are trying to find a way to act on each individual case,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a human rights discussion in Paris on June 25. “In certain cases you need to find a country that is ready to welcome the person in question.” Once a country is identified, he said, “we must have a guarantee that the rights of these people will be protected in that country. That’s not easy, either.” On Monday, State Department spokesman Ned Price praised the Moroccan government for taking custody of Nasser and used the opportunity to urge other countries — which he did not name — to repatriate their citizens who were captured in Syria or Iraq in the conflict against the Islamic State group. Many European countries have hesitated to take responsibility for handling their nationals, leaving them in the hands of Kurdish fighters. “Morocco’s leadership in facilitating Nasser’s repatriation, alongside its past willingness to return its foreign terrorist fighters from northeast Syria, should encourage other nations to repatriate their citizens who have traveled to fight for terrorist organizations abroad,” Price said. The Biden administration has reinvigorated a parole-like process that was established in the Obama years to consider each Guantánamo detainee who was not charged with crimes, to decide whether to recommend turning him over to the custody of another country. The interagency Periodic Review Board has announced five decisions since Biden took office, and all of those detainees were approved for transfers — including the oldest man held at Guantánamo, a 73-year-old Pakistani with heart disease and other geriatric ailments. The panel has representatives from six national security agencies, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and the Department of Homeland Security, but a recommendation for transfers does not assure release. The State Department must still come up with a transfer deal, and the defense secretary must personally approve it and provide notice to Congress. The board also held a hearing May 18 on whether to recommend the transfer of the Saudi prisoner who was tortured at Guantánamo, al-Qahtani, but has not announced a decision. He has a separate lawsuit pending in federal court over whether his psychiatric condition, acute schizophrenia, justifies repatriating him to medical care in Saudi Arabia because he cannot receive adequate care at the naval base. As part of that lawsuit, his lawyers obtained a court order to have a panel of doctors, including two non-American ones, examine him. The Justice Department during the Trump administration had opposed that lawsuit, and days before Trump left office his Army secretary changed a regulation to try to disqualify all Guantánamo prisoners, notably al-Qahtani, from the possibility of a court-ordered independent examination by outside doctors. Some Democrats in Congress, signalling impatience at the pace of efforts to close the prison, have proposed legislation in the Appropriations Committee that would defund the detention operation at Guantánamo, which has been estimated to cost more than $13 million per prisoner per year. Doing so, however, would require finding a place for the remaining 39 detainees to go. And even if the transfer of Nasser to Morocco turns out to be the first of a flurry, transfers of lower-level detainees alone will not close the prison. Some prisoners would have to be brought to the United States, potentially to a military detention setting, notably Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has yet to go on trial as the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. Current federal law dating to early 2011 forbids such transfers. The Biden White House’s 2022 budget proposal would restore presidential authority to transfer Guantánamo detainees to a mainland prison facility. But that would be up to Congress. Republicans and some Democrats have opposed the transfer of Mohammed and the others to detention in the United States and sought to stoke fears that giving them a trial on US soil or simply detaining them in the mainland would be more of a danger to national security. Opponents of the restrictions say that the federal government already holds many convicted terrorists on domestic soil safely and that bringing detainees from Guantánamo to similar detention would be no different. In a sign that such political messaging may soon return, on May 25, eight Republican senators wrote Biden opposing his intent to close the detention center through transfers. “The remaining 40 detainees are all high risk,” the senators wrote. Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma led the effort. The others who signed it were Marsha Blackburn, Kevin Cramer, Ted Cruz, Steve Daines, James Inhofe, Jerry Moran and Thom Tillis.

Biden administration transfers its first detainee from Guantánamo Bay

The approved release of three detainees locked up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for nearly two decades has raised expectations that President Joe Biden might try to close the notorious US military prison.

A high-level review board on May 17 signed off on the release of the oldest of the 40 so-called detainees still at Guantanamo, 73-year-old Pakistani businessman Saifullah Paracha, as well as two others.

Despite being arrested and secretly rendered to the US military prison on the Caribbean island between 2001 and 2003, the three were never charged, like most of the others still there.

Tarred by accusations of extra-legal imprisonment, denial of rights and torture, Guantanamo has been a human rights shame for Washington since it was opened in January 2002 as a "War on Terror" prison for people suspected of connections to the September 11, 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda.&nbsp;

Within a few years, the United States had seized around 780 people, most on slim evidence of Al-Qaeda ties, and taken them to Guantanamo as war prisoners. Many underwent torture in secret CIA locations before their transfer to the prison.

Only a dozen have been shown to have strong connections to 9/11 or other attacks.

Political liability

Biden was vice president when the then-president Barack Obama ordered the prison closed two days after taking office in 2009, with the idea that those tied to 9/11 would be tried in US civilian courts.

But the idea was deeply unpopular and Congress blocked it.

Instead, Obama over eight years quietly freed hundreds of prisoners after the Guantanamo Periodic Review Board (PRB) cleared them.

That process ground to a halt when Donald Trump took office in 2017.

Now, President Biden has inherited an expensive, legally dubious and, for many, embarrassing camp still holding 40 men that could outlast the two-decade war in Afghanistan sparked by 9/11.

Asked in April if Biden will close the base, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki replied that he "remains committed" to doing so.

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/joe-biden-aims-to-close-down-guantanamo-prison-white-house-spokeswoman-363280">Joe Biden aims to close down Guantanamo prison: White House spokeswoman</a>

"I feel confident that the Biden administration is going forward to clear out Guantanamo to the extent that is possible," said Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, attorney for Paracha after he was cleared for release.

Stuck in limbo 

Rights groups say Biden needs to act firmly.&nbsp;

"President Biden cannot have true credibility advocating for other countries to respect human rights if he does not prioritize closing Guantanamo," said Daphne Eviatar of Amnesty International.

Of the 40 men still there, nine have been cleared for release. Six cleared under Obama saw their transfers frozen by Trump.

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/guantanamo-detainee-abu-zubaydah-to-file-complaint-with-un-agency-381799">Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah to file complaint with UN agency</a>

Twelve, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, called the architect of the 9/11 attacks, are in the slow-moving military tribunal system. Just two have been convicted over nearly two decades.

The other 19 are in limbo: they haven't been charged, or granted release by the PRB.&nbsp;

Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented several detainees, says Biden will not likely make Obama's political mistake of going public with his intention to clear out the prison.

Instead, he can just let the PRB do its work. Kadidal said the recent transfer approvals suggest the board is now prone to approving the last, most difficult cases, many with psychiatric disorders and having experienced abuse in the hands of the CIA.

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/pentagon-pauses-plan-to-give-covid-19-vaccine-to-prisoners-at-guantanamo-bay-360368">Pentagon pauses plan to give COVID-19 vaccine to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay</a>

"To me, that says that there's been a little bit of an attitude shift, and a very laudable one, on the part of the PRB," he said.

But other barriers to closure remain. Biden has yet to restaff the State Department's special envoy office handling repatriations, closed by Trump.

More challenging is what to do with the 12 in the military tribunals system. Six, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, face charges that carry the death penalty.

Better than federal prisons

Their cases have moved exceedingly slowly, stalled by procedural challenges often relating to their mistreatment and denial of US constitutional rights, and by changes of judges and lawyers on both sides.

Biden could seek to have them moved to the US mainland and put in federal criminal courts, but Kadidal said that remains fraught with political dangers.

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-vows-to-keep-guantanamo-bay-prison-open-31282">Trump vows to keep Guantanamo Bay prison open</a>

Civilian courts could expose more torture and denial of fundamental rights that judges and jurors might sympathize with.

Some in the Pentagon bureaucracy also want to keep Guantanamo open for future conflicts, too, Kadidal said.&nbsp;

And lawyers for the detainees themselves possibly see that stalling the military tribunals and lodging appeals is preferable to reaching verdicts that could mean execution.

"These guys could die natural deaths down there. They're in better conditions than what you would get in a federal terrorism facility," said Kadidal.

"The status quo of no trial happening, and being at Gitmo, is in some ways preferable to what you might experience otherwise."

The approved release of three detainees locked up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for nearly two decades has raised expectations that President Joe Biden might try to close the notorious US military prison.

The approved release of three detainees locked up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for nearly two decades has raised expectations that President Joe Biden might try to close the notorious US military prison. A high-level review board on May 17 signed off on the release of the oldest of the 40 so-called detainees still at Guantanamo, 73-year-old Pakistani businessman Saifullah Paracha, as well as two others. Despite being arrested and secretly rendered to the US military prison on the Caribbean island between 2001 and 2003, the three were never charged, like most of the others still there. Tarred by accusations of extra-legal imprisonment, denial of rights and torture, Guantanamo has been a human rights shame for Washington since it was opened in January 2002 as a "War on Terror" prison for people suspected of connections to the September 11, 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda. Within a few years, the United States had seized around 780 people, most on slim evidence of Al-Qaeda ties, and taken them to Guantanamo as war prisoners. Many underwent torture in secret CIA locations before their transfer to the prison. Only a dozen have been shown to have strong connections to 9/11 or other attacks. Political liability Biden was vice president when the then-president Barack Obama ordered the prison closed two days after taking office in 2009, with the idea that those tied to 9/11 would be tried in US civilian courts. But the idea was deeply unpopular and Congress blocked it. Instead, Obama over eight years quietly freed hundreds of prisoners after the Guantanamo Periodic Review Board (PRB) cleared them. That process ground to a halt when Donald Trump took office in 2017. Now, President Biden has inherited an expensive, legally dubious and, for many, embarrassing camp still holding 40 men that could outlast the two-decade war in Afghanistan sparked by 9/11. Asked in April if Biden will close the base, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki replied that he "remains committed" to doing so. Also Read | Joe Biden aims to close down Guantanamo prison: White House spokeswoman "I feel confident that the Biden administration is going forward to clear out Guantanamo to the extent that is possible," said Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, attorney for Paracha after he was cleared for release. Stuck in limbo Rights groups say Biden needs to act firmly. "President Biden cannot have true credibility advocating for other countries to respect human rights if he does not prioritize closing Guantanamo," said Daphne Eviatar of Amnesty International. Of the 40 men still there, nine have been cleared for release. Six cleared under Obama saw their transfers frozen by Trump. Also Read | Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah to file complaint with UN agency Twelve, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, called the architect of the 9/11 attacks, are in the slow-moving military tribunal system. Just two have been convicted over nearly two decades. The other 19 are in limbo: they haven't been charged, or granted release by the PRB. Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented several detainees, says Biden will not likely make Obama's political mistake of going public with his intention to clear out the prison. Instead, he can just let the PRB do its work. Kadidal said the recent transfer approvals suggest the board is now prone to approving the last, most difficult cases, many with psychiatric disorders and having experienced abuse in the hands of the CIA. Also Read | Pentagon pauses plan to give COVID-19 vaccine to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay "To me, that says that there's been a little bit of an attitude shift, and a very laudable one, on the part of the PRB," he said. But other barriers to closure remain. Biden has yet to restaff the State Department's special envoy office handling repatriations, closed by Trump. More challenging is what to do with the 12 in the military tribunals system. Six, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, face charges that carry the death penalty. Better than federal prisons Their cases have moved exceedingly slowly, stalled by procedural challenges often relating to their mistreatment and denial of US constitutional rights, and by changes of judges and lawyers on both sides. Biden could seek to have them moved to the US mainland and put in federal criminal courts, but Kadidal said that remains fraught with political dangers. Also Read | Trump vows to keep Guantanamo Bay prison open Civilian courts could expose more torture and denial of fundamental rights that judges and jurors might sympathize with. Some in the Pentagon bureaucracy also want to keep Guantanamo open for future conflicts, too, Kadidal said. And lawyers for the detainees themselves possibly see that stalling the military tribunals and lodging appeals is preferable to reaching verdicts that could mean execution. "These guys could die natural deaths down there. They're in better conditions than what you would get in a federal terrorism facility," said Kadidal. "The status quo of no trial happening, and being at Gitmo, is in some ways preferable to what you might experience otherwise."

Will Biden close Guantanamo 'War on Terror' prison?

The secret US Guantanamo Bay prisoners belonging to Camp 7 were moved to Camp 5 by the US military after it fell into disrepair. The camps were initially set up in December 2006 for prisoners held in clandestine CIA detention facilities.

The secret US Guantanamo Bay prisoners belonging to Camp 7 were moved to Camp 5 by the US military after it fell into disrepair. The camps were initially set up in December 2006 for prisoners held in clandestine CIA detention facilities. The camp has been shrouded in secrecy with no journalists allowed in the camp facilities. The once dreaded camp held prisoners allegedly linked to September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. President Joe Biden had said recently that he wants to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects before the end of his term. However, former President Donald Trump had expressed his willingness to keep the Guantanamo prison open as part of his 2016 election campaign promise. Biden's Democratic predecessor Obama had pitched for closing the camps but could not reach a deal with Congress when Biden was his vice-president. The US had opened the Guantanamo Bay camp as part of its drive to "war on terror" after the 2001 terror attacks and it had held the Pakistani Khaled Sheikh Mohammed who was the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 attacks. The camp was built on a naval base belonging to the US on the eastern tip of Cuba. The US military had earlier denied that camp 7 even existed, it moved the prisoners to camp 5 “safely and without incident” secretly without giving details. The US Southern Command in a statement said the transfer of the prisoners was made to “increase operational efficiency and effectiveness.” The small enclave was ceded by Cuba to the United States in 1903 after the US government helped the nation in the war against the Spaniards. US Spokeswoman Jen Psaki had said that the Biden administration intends to close the prisoner centre, adding, "That certainly is our goal and our intention. Paski asserted that the US government was working with the National Security Council to "assess the current state of play that the Biden administration has, we've inherited from the previous administration."

US shuts secret Guantanamo prison unit, moves prisoners to another nearby camp

US&nbsp;President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his call for the death penalty against the Uzbek immigrant accused of killing eight people by driving a truck down a popular Manhattan bike path in the deadliest act of suspected terrorism to strike New York City since Sept. 11, 2001.

Sayfullo Saipov, 29, was charged in federal court on Wednesday with acting in support of the militant group Islamic State by plowing the truck down a riverside bike trail, injuring a dozen people in addition to those killed.

Trump had suggested on Wednesday sending Saipov to the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, where terrorism suspects apprehended overseas are incarcerated, but on Thursday he said doing so would be too complicated.

&quot;Would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system,&quot; Trump said on Twitter.

He added: &quot;There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!&quot;

According to the complaint filed against him, Saipov told investigators that he had been inspired by watching Islamic State propaganda videos on his cellphone, felt good about what he had done and asked for permission to display the Islamic State flag in his room at Bellevue Hospital Center.

Saipov was taken to Bellevue after he was shot in the abdomen by a police officer at the time of his arrest.

Trump on Thursday also repeated his the call for Congress to end the Diversity Immigrant Visa program under which Saipov entered the United States in 2010, saying on Twitter: &quot;We need to make AMERICA SAFE!&quot;

The diversity program, signed into law in 1990 by Republican President George H.W. Bush, was designed to provide more permanent resident visas to people from countries with low U.S. immigration rates.

One of the two criminal counts Saipov faces, violence and destruction of motor vehicles causing the deaths of eight people, carries the death penalty if the government chooses to seek it, according to acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim.

Tweets and the death penalty

Trump&#39;s tweets calling for the death penalty before Saipov even had a chance to enter a plea to the charges he faces could work to the defendant&#39;s advantage by giving his lawyers a chance to argue that the president prejudiced potential jurors.

&quot;The defence is sure to raise this as unfair and raising questions about a jury being able to reach an impartial verdict,&quot; said James Acker, a criminal justice professor at the State University of New York in Albany who specializes in capital punishment.

It could be used to make an argument that a judge should not allow the death penalty as a sentencing option, Acker said, adding that &quot;the likelihood of that succeeding is very small.&quot;

Saipov&#39;s defence attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Asked by reporters whether he thought Saipov should be executed if convicted, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he categorically opposes the death penalty.

&quot;I believe this is an individual who should rot in prison for the rest of his life,&quot; he told a news conference.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving member of a pair of ethnic Chechen brothers who killed three people and injured more than 260 when they bombed the 2013 Boston Marathon in an attack inspired by the al Qaeda militant group, was sentenced to death in 2015. He is the only inmate among the 61 people on federal death row convicted for an act charged as terrorism.

Senator Lindsay Graham, a Republican, on Thursday repeated his criticism of the Justice Department for charging Saipov in the courts rather than treating him as an enemy combatant.

&quot;I&#39;m dumbfounded as to why the Trump Administration still follows the Obama playbook when it comes to dealing with terror suspects,&quot; Graham said in a statement.

Kim, the federal prosecutor, said the filing of charges against Saipov in federal court does not preclude the government from later declaring him an enemy combatant, though legal experts said such a move was highly unlikely.

Experts also said it would be highly improbable to send Saipov to Guantanamo because a federal judge would have to agree to turn him over to a military commission, and no person has ever been sent to Guantanamo straight from U.S. soil. In addition, as a permanent legal resident of the United States Saipov has virtually the same rights as a U.S. citizen, they said.

Declaring an individual an enemy combatant allows investigators to interrogate the person without having a lawyer present.

Saipov did waive his right to remain silent or have an attorney present when he agreed to speak to investigators from his bed at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, according to the criminal complaint.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had located another Uzbek man, Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, 32, wanted for questioning as a person of interest in the attack.

Five Argentine tourists, a Belgian woman, a New Yorker and a New Jersey man were killed in Tuesday&#39;s attack.

The attack unfolded a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center where some 2,600 people lost their lives after suicide hijackers crashed two jetliners into the Twin Towers 16 years ago.

'There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!' Trump tweeted

US President Donald Trump on Thursday reiterated his call for the death penalty against the Uzbek immigrant accused of killing eight people by driving a truck down a popular Manhattan bike path in the deadliest act of suspected terrorism to strike New York City since Sept. 11, 2001. Sayfullo Saipov, 29, was charged in federal court on Wednesday with acting in support of the militant group Islamic State by plowing the truck down a riverside bike trail, injuring a dozen people in addition to those killed. Trump had suggested on Wednesday sending Saipov to the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, where terrorism suspects apprehended overseas are incarcerated, but on Thursday he said doing so would be too complicated. "Would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system," Trump said on Twitter. He added: "There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!" According to the complaint filed against him, Saipov told investigators that he had been inspired by watching Islamic State propaganda videos on his cellphone, felt good about what he had done and asked for permission to display the Islamic State flag in his room at Bellevue Hospital Center. Saipov was taken to Bellevue after he was shot in the abdomen by a police officer at the time of his arrest. Trump on Thursday also repeated his the call for Congress to end the Diversity Immigrant Visa program under which Saipov entered the United States in 2010, saying on Twitter: "We need to make AMERICA SAFE!" The diversity program, signed into law in 1990 by Republican President George H.W. Bush, was designed to provide more permanent resident visas to people from countries with low U.S. immigration rates. One of the two criminal counts Saipov faces, violence and destruction of motor vehicles causing the deaths of eight people, carries the death penalty if the government chooses to seek it, according to acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim. Tweets and the death penalty Trump's tweets calling for the death penalty before Saipov even had a chance to enter a plea to the charges he faces could work to the defendant's advantage by giving his lawyers a chance to argue that the president prejudiced potential jurors. "The defence is sure to raise this as unfair and raising questions about a jury being able to reach an impartial verdict," said James Acker, a criminal justice professor at the State University of New York in Albany who specializes in capital punishment. It could be used to make an argument that a judge should not allow the death penalty as a sentencing option, Acker said, adding that "the likelihood of that succeeding is very small." Saipov's defence attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Asked by reporters whether he thought Saipov should be executed if convicted, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he categorically opposes the death penalty. "I believe this is an individual who should rot in prison for the rest of his life," he told a news conference. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving member of a pair of ethnic Chechen brothers who killed three people and injured more than 260 when they bombed the 2013 Boston Marathon in an attack inspired by the al Qaeda militant group, was sentenced to death in 2015. He is the only inmate among the 61 people on federal death row convicted for an act charged as terrorism. Senator Lindsay Graham, a Republican, on Thursday repeated his criticism of the Justice Department for charging Saipov in the courts rather than treating him as an enemy combatant. "I'm dumbfounded as to why the Trump Administration still follows the Obama playbook when it comes to dealing with terror suspects," Graham said in a statement. Kim, the federal prosecutor, said the filing of charges against Saipov in federal court does not preclude the government from later declaring him an enemy combatant, though legal experts said such a move was highly unlikely. Experts also said it would be highly improbable to send Saipov to Guantanamo because a federal judge would have to agree to turn him over to a military commission, and no person has ever been sent to Guantanamo straight from U.S. soil. In addition, as a permanent legal resident of the United States Saipov has virtually the same rights as a U.S. citizen, they said. Declaring an individual an enemy combatant allows investigators to interrogate the person without having a lawyer present. Saipov did waive his right to remain silent or have an attorney present when he agreed to speak to investigators from his bed at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, according to the criminal complaint. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had located another Uzbek man, Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, 32, wanted for questioning as a person of interest in the attack. Five Argentine tourists, a Belgian woman, a New Yorker and a New Jersey man were killed in Tuesday's attack. The attack unfolded a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center where some 2,600 people lost their lives after suicide hijackers crashed two jetliners into the Twin Towers 16 years ago.

Trump reiterates call for death penalty for New York truck attack suspect