GUANTANAMO (Cuba), Oct 30 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — The eldest prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, Saif Ullah Paracha, was released and returned to Pakistan on Saturday after 18 years of captivity at the base illegally occupied by the United States in Cuba.
The Pakistani businessman, like most detainees at the secret US military prison, was never formally charged and had little legal power to challenge his detention.
The US prison at Guantanamo Bay once held hundreds of suspected militants captured by US forces during the so-called ‘war on terror’ following the 9/11 attacks by the Al Qaeda terrorist group in 2001.
Paracha was arrested in 2003 in Bangkok, Thailand, on charges of financing Al Qaeda, and, like most of the prisoners at Guantanamo, he was never formally charged and had little legal power to challenge his detention.
In ISLAMABAD, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued Saturday that it completed an extensive inter-agency process to facilitate Paracha’s repatriation.
The former prisoner´s arrival comes after US President Joe Biden approved his release last year, along with that of another Pakistani national, Abdul Rabbani, 55, and Yemeni Uthman Abdul al-Rahim Uthman, 41. — NNN-PRENSA LATINA
