First ‘high-value detainee’ released from Guantanamo Bay detention

Majid Khan was convicted of transferring money to Al Qaeda and plotting a suicide bomb attack

Majid Khan, 42, was transferred to the Central American country of Belize. (Photograph provided by Majid Khan’s legal team. )

A former member of Al Qaeda has been released from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility after serving a 10-year sentence and cooperating with US authorities.

Majid Khan, 42, was transferred to the Central American country of Belize, the Defence Department announced, after completing his sentence a year ago.

Mr Khan is the first so-called “high-value” detainee to be released from the notorious US detention facility in Cuba, a description given to prisoners considered to be of the highest intelligence value, and who were subjected to torture during the administration of George W. Bush.

The Department of Defence said Mr Khan’s transfer was made “in consultation with Belize partners” after he completed his sentence.

“The United States appreciates the willingness of the Government of Belize and other partners to support ongoing U.S. efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility, “ the DoD said in a statement.

In a statement released by his legal team, Mr Khan asked for “forgiveness from God and those I have hurt.”

“I have been given a second chance in life and I intend to make the most of it. I deeply regret the things that I did many years ago, and I have taken responsibility and tried to make up for them,” he said in the statement.

“The world has changed a lot in twenty years, and I have changed a lot as well. I promise all of you, especially the people of Belize that I will be a productive, law-abiding member of society. Thank you for believing in me, and I will not let you down. My actions will speak louder than my words,” he added.

Mr Khan was born in Saudi Arabia, raised in Pakistan, and moved to Maryland with his family when he was 16. He confessed to having joined Al Qaeda following a family trip to Pakistan in 2002.

“I went willingly to Al Qaeda,” he said at his sentencing, according to the New York Times. “I was stupid, so incredibly stupid. But they promised to relieve my pain and purify my sins. They promised to redeem me, and I believed them.”

Mr Khan was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, on 5 March 2003 and held in the custody of a foreign government before his rendition to the custody of the Central Intelligence Agency. He would remain in CIA custody for three years, until 2006.

During his time in CIA detention, Mr Khan was subjected “to sleep deprivation, nudity, and dietary manipulation, and may have been subjected to an ice water bath,” according to the Rendition Project.

He pleaded guilty before a military commission in 2012 to transferring money to Al Qaeda and plotting bomb attacks with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks. One of those plots was a suicide bomb attack targeting the president of Pakistan at the time, Pervez Musharraf, that was never carried out.

At his sentencing in 2021, Mr Khan described the torture he endured in detail, claiming to have been subjected to rape by forced feeding through his rectum.

Mr Khan’s is the first resettlement of a Guantanamo detainee since the Obama administration.

The Defence Department said on Thursday that 34 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay: “20 are eligible for transfer; 3 are eligible for a Periodic Review Board; 9 are involved in the military commissions process; and 2 remaining detainees have been convicted in military commissions.”