Biden administration repatriates Guantánamo Bay inmate to Morocco

The Biden administration has repatriated a detainee from Guantánamo Bay to Morocco, the first transfer of an inmate from the high-security prison since the Trump administration mostly halted the resettlements when he took office in 2017.

The transfer of detainee Abdul Latif Nasir leaves just 39 inmates at the facility, located on a military base on the eastern tip of Cuba, and provides the first concrete illustration of how the administration may attempt to finally shutter the prison.

The United States is “extremely grateful for the Kingdom’s willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The George W. Bush administration began moving terrorism suspects to Guantánamo Bay in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. At its peak, the prison help more than 700 detainees, and became a global symbol of U.S. excesses in its response to extremist threats.

President Barack Obama vowed to close the prison but, facing congressional opposition, was unable to do so. His administration transferred more than 170 prisoners to their home countries or third countries.

President Donald Trump mostly halted those transfers, opposing the facility’s closure and threatening to send additional terrorism suspects there. Nasir, a former al-Qaeda fighter who has been at the prison since 2002, was one of five men whose transfers had been ready at the end of the Obama administration but did not go through.

The Trump administration transferred just one prisoner, a man who officials moved to his native Saudi Arabia so he could serve out his sentence there.

The Pentagon did not say whether Nasir would be free or subject to further detention in Morocco, but did make reference to “security and human treatment assurances” that the kingdom gave. A government board recommended his transfer in 2016.