Pakistani brothers freed from Guantanamo after 20 years of illegal detention

Two Pakistani brothers who were held at the US-controlled Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba have been set free after nearly 20 years in jail without charge.

According to the Pentagon, Abdul and Mohammed Ahmed Rabbani operated an al-Qaeda safe house and organized travel and funds for the group's leaders.

Both men were approved for release in 2021, but it is unclear why they remained imprisoned.

Both brothers, who have now been repatriated to Pakistan, said that they were tortured by CIA officers before being transferred to Guantanamo.

The Guantanamo Bay military camp prison facility, which is based within a US Navy military base, was established by then-President George W Bush in 2002 to hold foreign terrorism suspects following the 9/11 terror attacks in New York.

Guantanamo: Extraordinary rendition, torture, eternal detention

Guantanamo, which at its peak held over 700 inmates, has been synonymous with human rights abuses perpetrated by the US government in the name of the war on terrorism.

"The United States appreciates the willingness of the Government of Pakistan and other partners to support ongoing US efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility," the Pentagon said in a statement.

Pakistan's security services first detained the brothers who were captured in the city of Karachi in September 2002. After about two years they were transferred to Guantanamo prison after originally being held at a CIA black site known as "the salt pit" outside Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

Ahmed Rabbani began a series of hunger strikes in 2013 that lasted for seven years. He would survive on nutritional supplements, sometimes forcibly fed to him through a tube.

A lawyer who has represented the brothers, Clive Stafford Smith, told the New York Times that Ahmed Rabbani is "very damaged" from his hunger strikes and "has a hard time holding food down. But he is getting better on that front".

The wife of Ahmed Rabbani was pregnant at the time of his arrest and just five months later she gave birth to their son who has never met his father. He built a name for himself as an accomplished artist during his time at Guantanamo.

Guantanamo Bay prison has become a symbol of US aggression and disregard for international laws due to interrogation methods that critics say amount to torture, and detainees being held for long periods without trial.

UN experts say after 20 years of running 'ugly' Guantanamo prison, US must close it down

UN experts strongly urge the US to act on its promise to close down its detention center at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.

US President Joe Biden and his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, had expressed hope to close the facility, where 32 people are still being detained. At its peak in 2003, the prison held 680 captives at one time.

Maya Foa, director of justice charity Reprieve, which provided legal representation to Ahmed Rabbani until last year, called his two decades of imprisonment a "tragedy" that "exemplifies how far the USA strayed from its founding principles during the 'war on terror' era".

"They robbed a family of a son, a husband, and a father. That injustice can never be rectified. A full reckoning of the harms caused by the disastrous 'war on terror' can only begin when Guantanamo is closed for good," Foa said.

According to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, Rabbani was tortured for two years by the CIA. According to the report, he was a victim of mistaken identity.

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