The Pentagon said Thursday that an Algerian prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility will be transferred back to his home country, leaving 30 prisoners at a site that once held hundreds of alleged jihadis rounded up in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The government said that it is no longer necessary to hold Said bin Brahim bin Umran Bakush at the site, where he’s been imprisoned for more than two decades. The repatriation is the latest step in a push by the Biden administration to thin out the population at Guantanamo.
Closing the controversial detention facility located on the island of Cuba has been a policy priority for Democratic presidents, including former President Obama and now President Biden. The population at Guantanamo has dwindled from its peak of well over 600 to 30, but Congress has repeatedly blocked efforts to shut down the site entirely and transfer its remaining prisoners to U.S. jails.
Of those still at Guantanamo, 16 are eligible for transfer; three are eligible for a Periodic Review Board; nine are involved in the military commissions process; and two detainees have been convicted in military commissions, the Pentagon said.
The Defense Department said its Periodic Review Board, which includes officials from the Justice Department, intelligence community and other arms of the federal government, made the determination on Mr. Bakush after a thorough review process.
“The PRB recommended that Said bin Brahim bin Umran Bakush … be transferred subject to the implementation of a comprehensive set of security measures including monitoring, travel restrictions and continued information sharing,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
“The United States appreciates the willingness of the government of Algeria, and other partners to support ongoing U.S. efforts toward a deliberate and thorough process focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility,” defense officials said.
In a 2016 unclassified government profile of Mr. Bakush, officials described him as a “trusted associate” of al Qaeda facilitator Abu Zubaydah and al Qaeda trainer Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. Officials said that they believe Mr. Bakush traveled in Afghanistan in the late 1990s and “attended basic and advanced training and later served as an instructor at an extremist camp.”
He was captured at a safehouse in March 2002, the government said, about five months after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan.
In the years since, Mr. Bakush has “consistently denied involvement in terrorist activities,” the government said.
