Pakistani citizen Saifullah Paracha detained in Guantanamo Bay returns home

• Foreign Office confirmed that Pakistani national Saifullah Paracha has returned home
• Paracha was the oldest inmate detained in Guantanamo Bay detention camp
• US President Biden approved his release last year

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office has confirmed that Pakistani national Saifullah Paracha, who had been detained in Guantanamo Bay, has arrived home after his release.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs completed an extensive inter-agency process to facilitate the repatriation of Paracha. “We are glad that a Pakistani citizen detained abroad is finally reunited with his family,” the spokesperson said in a press release.

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also shared the news with the nation in a Twitter post.

Mr. Paracha, who was detained in Guantanamo Bay 🇺🇸 , has been released & reached 🇵🇰 on Saturday. The Foreign Ministry completed an extensive inter-agency process to facilitate repatriation of Mr. Paracha. We are glad that a citizen detained abroad is reunited with his family. https://t.co/VSTOTAbuMP

— BilawalBhuttoZardari (@BBhuttoZardari) October 29, 2022

Paracha, aged 75, is said to be the oldest prisoner in the detention camp, which is a US military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

Paracha was arrested in July 2003 in Bangkok and accused of financing the armed group Al-Qaeda. He was taken to Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2004.

In May 2021, the US approved Paracha’s release concluding only that he was “not a continuing threat” to the US. He was never formally charged and had little legal power to challenge his detention.

US authorities had alleged he was an al-Qaeda facilitator who helped two of the 9/11 plotters with a financial transaction. Paracha has denied any involvement in terrorism.

The secretive US military prison was established in the wake of 9/11 to hold suspected al-Qaeda members captured during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Out of 780 inmates held during the so-called “war on terror”, 732 were released without charge. Nearly 40 prisoners remain in the infamous detention facility, which has become a symbol of human rights abuses.

Paracha’s return comes after US President Joe Biden last year approved his release, along with that of another Pakistani national Abdul Rabbani, 55, and Yemen native Uthman Abdul al-Rahim Uthman, 41.

Biden is under pressure to clear out uncharged prisoners at Guantanamo and move ahead with the trials. Paracha, who studied in the US, had an import-export business supplying major US retailers.

The US government approved Paracha’s release after his son Uzair Paracha’s conviction was overturned in 2018. Paracha’s son was arrested on the charge of helping suspected militants to get into the US through faulty documents months before his father’s arrest.

He was sentenced to 30 years in jail in 2005 by the federal court in New York, however, a judge threw out witness accounts in March 2020. Uzair was sent back to Pakistan in 2021 after the US government decided not to seek a new trial.

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