MUST-READS

• Guantánamo Bay detainee repatriated to Saudi Arabia

  The Pentagon said Wednesday it had repatriated a longtime inmate from the U.S. prison in Guantánamo Bay to his home country of Saudi Arabia, as the Biden administration moves closer toward its stated but complex goal of shuttering the detention facility in Cuba. The Defense Department said in a statement that Ghassan al-Sharbi, 48, was returned after consulting with Saudi Arabia to ensure it could meet “the requirements for responsible transfer.” Sharbi was charged in 2009 with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. The United States alleged that Sharbi had traveled from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan in August 2001 to receive terrorism training at a camp operated by al-Qaeda.

• They Won Guantánamo’s Supreme Court Cases. Where Are They Now?

  Their stories still matter today. About 780 men and boys were taken to Guantánamo, all by the George W. Bush administration, beginning 21 years ago, on Jan. 11, 2002. Of them, 35 prisoners remain. Some still have court cases that challenge the legal limits of the war against terrorism and continue to shape its legacy.

• As U.S. Seeks to Close Guantánamo, Saudi Center Could Be Option

  The beneficiaries of the Saudi government program, which helps prisoners re-enter society, were on furlough for family visits for Eid al-Adha, the season of the Feast of the Sacrifice, leaving the place eerily empty, like a U.S. college campus on Christmas break. Only a painting in the gallery offered a glimpse of the religious tolerance that is a hallmark of the program: It was of a woman smelling a flower, her hair uncovered and flowing, against the night sky. The program, with its campus in Riyadh, and another in Jeddah, grew from a counterterrorism campaign that began in 2004 to re-educate citizens who had made their way home from jihadist training camps in Afghanistan and others influenced by them.

• Guantanamo detainee called ’20th Hijacker’ of 9/11 repatriated to Saudi Arabia

  A man accused of being the would-be 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks has been repatriated to Saudi Arabia after two decades detained at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Department of Defense said on Monday. Mohammad Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani, 46, was transferred to his native Saudi Arabia after a review board determined in June that he no longer represented a significant threat to U.S. national security, the Defense Department said in a written statement.

• Panel Approves Transfer of Saudi Engineer From Guantánamo Bay

  A U.S. government review panel on Thursday approved the release with security guarantees of a Saudi prisoner at Guantánamo Bay who was captured in Pakistan and held as a suspected bomb maker. The decision in the case of Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi, who has been held for nearly 20 years, means most of the 39 detainees at the wartime prison have now been cleared for transfer, but must wait for U.S. diplomats to reach security agreements with countries willing to take them in.

• Guantanamo detainee to be transferred to mental health facility in Saudi Arabia

  The US government is set to transfer a detainee from the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba who authorities once alleged was an al-Qaeda operative who planned to be the "20th hijacker" on 9/11 but failed to board United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

• Guantanamo Bay detainee Asadullah Haroon Gul held illegally, judge rules.

  Gul, 40, was captured in 2007 by Afghan forces, turned over to the United States, and remains one of the last 39 detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He is also one of only two Afghans who remain out of 219 sent there after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. President Biden formally ended the U.S. war in Afghanistan in August.

• Biden Administration Transfers Its First Detainee From Guantánamo Bay

  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 Biden to winnow the population of prisoners by sending them to other countries that promise to ensure the men remain under security measures. Mr. Nasser was never charged with a crime.

• Prosecutors Struggle to Resume Guantánamo Trials

  The coronavirus pandemic is forcing the military to consider creating a quarantine zone at the court compound to allow proceedings to continue in the case of the alleged 9/11 plotters.

• Guantanamo Bay
  Terrorism Trials at Guantanamo Are Challenged by Extreme Delays

  In the latest setback to the Guantanamo military commissions, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday threw out some three years of pretrial rulings by the military judge presiding over the case of the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.

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