Justice Delayed: The Oldest Prisoner at Guantanamo Bay Released and Returned to Pakistan
- Saifullah Paracha, 75, was held since 2003 on suspicion of ties to al-Qaida but was never charged with a crime.
Saifullah Paracha, the oldest prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention center was released and returned to Pakistan last week. The Associated Press, citing the U.S. Defense Department and the foreign ministry in Islamabad, said that the 75-year-old “was reunited with his family after more than 17 years in custody in the U.S. base in Cuba.”
In an Oct. 29 statement, the DoD said the U.S. appreciates “the willingness of Pakistan and other partners to support ongoing U.S. efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility.”
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry also released a statement stating that it had “completed an extensive interagency process” to facilitate the repatriation of Paracha. “We are glad that a Pakistani citizen detained abroad is finally reunited with his family.”
A former legal resident of New York, Paracha was “held since 2003 on suspicion of ties to al-Qaida, but was never charged with a crime,” the AP said.
“Paracha stood out among the predominantly younger Muslim men, most of whom were captured in their teens and 20s by Afghan or Pakistani militias and turned over to the United States as presumptive foot soldiers of Al Qaeda or the Taliban.”
He was accused of helping Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, “the accused mastermind of Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, facilitate financial transactions and propaganda” after the attacks, The Times reported. Authorities also said he “met with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan before the attacks as part of a delegation of Pakistani dignitaries,” the Times added.
Paracha has maintained that he didn’t know they were al-Qaida and denied any involvement in terrorism.
Paracha was captured in “a sting operation in Thailand when he was lured from his home in Karachi to Bangkok by businessmen posing as Kmart representatives to discuss a merchandising deal,” as reported by The New York Times. “Instead, intelligence agents seized, hooded and shackled him and flew him to Afghanistan.” At Guantanamo, “military prosecutors never sought to put him on trial, but review panels considered him too dangerous to release until last year,” The Times reported.
Last May, he was notified that he had been approved for release. He was cleared by the prisoner review board, along with two other men in November 2020.
“He had long suffered from diabetes, coronary artery disease and high blood pressure, but would not have heart surgery at Guantánamo, which sends residents to the United States for cardiac treatment,” The Times report said.
Paracha was held first at a U.S. military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, where he had a heart attack, his lawyers told The Times. He was then moved to Guantánamo in his 14th month of U.S. detention. There, The Times notes that “Paracha stood out among the predominantly younger Muslim men, most of whom were captured in their teens and 20s by Afghan or Pakistani militias and turned over to the United States as presumptive foot soldiers of Al Qaeda or the Taliban.”
His wife, whom he met and married in the United States, divorced him while he was in custody, according to the Times. He was expected to live with his youngest son, Mustafa, who in an interview last year said that “the first order of business would be a family reunion, followed by comprehensive medical care.”