US releases another Saudi prisoner from Guantanamo Bay
MIAMI
A Saudi citizen who has spent the past 12
years detained at Guantanamo Bay has been released, the Pentagon said Saturday,
amid a push to whittle down the prison population at the U.S. base in Cuba.
Muhammad al-Zahrani was sent to his
homeland based on the conclusion of a U.S. government board that has been
re-evaluating the need to continue holding some of the men as prisoners, the
Pentagon said in a statement. He will take part in a Saudi program to
rehabilitate militants.
Al-Zahrani, who is about 45, had been
held at Guantanamo since August 2002, according to military records. A report
by the Periodic Review Board said he traveled to Afghanistan in 1999 and
"almost certainly" joined al-Qaida, trained in military tactics and
fought the Northern Alliance.
His lawyers, in a statement to the board,
described him as a "middle-aged, ailing man who desperately wants to
return to Saudi Arabia." They said his father died while he was in U.S.
custody and "his only wish is to see his ailing mother before she passes
away."
The board cleared him for release in
October, citing a number of factors including his willingness to participate in
the Saudi rehabilitation program. He left Guantanamo on Friday.
Al-Zahrani is the 13th prisoner to leave
Guantanamo Bay this year and the seventh in just the past two weeks. Officials
have said more prisoners will be released in the coming weeks as part of a
renewed effort to close the site where 142 men now are held, including 73
already cleared for release.
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