The discharge caps a saga that started in 2003 when Khan, who was born in Saudi Arabia however spent a part of his youth outdoors Baltimore, was captured in Pakistan earlier than being topic to beatings, sleep deprivation and different excessive measures by the hands of CIA interrogators and later taken to Guantánamo.
The delay between the conclusion of his sentence in March 2022 and his launch underscores the authorized and political challenges that President Biden will face in trying to lastly shut down the high-profile jail, which now holds simply 34 getting old detainees however stays a charged subject on Capitol Hill.
White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated that Khan had honored his cooperation dedication.
“We stay devoted to a deliberate and thorough course of, targeted on responsibly lowering the detainee inhabitants,” she advised reporters.
By his personal account, Khan tried to undertake an American id after his household emigrated to the USA from Pakistan within the Nineties, and regarded becoming a member of the Navy and dealing for a know-how firm in Virginia after highschool . Later, when he returned to Pakistan, he got here underneath the affect of al-Qaeda and took half in militant plots, together with transferring $50,o00 to operatives who carried out a lethal bombing in Indonesia, he later described.
As a captive Khan was imprisoned at a number of CIA amenities overseas, the place he endured harsh interrogation techniques together with being submerged in ice water till he believed he was drowning and suspended bare from the ceiling by his wrists. He stated he suffers lasting illnesses from that remedy, which additionally included being force-fed anally after he went on starvation strike.
Khan’s plea deal, which gave him a lighter sentence in trade for offering testimony in different circumstances, resulted in a 10-year sentence that concluded final 12 months.
“I’ve been given a second probability in life and I intend to benefit from it,” Khan stated in an announcement launched through his attorneys. “I deeply remorse the issues that I did a few years in the past, and I’ve taken duty and tried to make up for them.”
In an announcement, the Protection Division thanked the federal government of Belize.
Thirty-four inmates stay at Guantánamo, the place efforts to prosecute suspects from the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults and different terror incidents have repeatedly stalled in a navy court docket. The overwhelming majority of the practically 800 males held there have been by no means charged with against the law.