Taliban welcome two former Guantanamo prisoners to Kabul Breakthrough in negotiations: new EU debt rules ready for decision

The Taliban ruling Afghanistan have welcomed two former prisoners from the controversial US prison camp Guantánamo Bay. A video from the Tolonews channel showed the two men arriving in the capital of Kabul on Monday. According to the Taliban Interior Ministry, the former prisoners were Abdul Karim and Abdul Sahir. The men were transferred from Guantanamo to the Gulf state of Oman in 2017, where they spent the past few years under house arrest.

In Kabul, banners with welcome messages lined the streets, as photos on social media showed. “Heroic prisoners,” read one poster. According to the state news agency Bakhtar, they were the last two detainees from Guantanamo with ties to the Taliban. The release took place after negotiations with the US. The men were arrested in 2002 and spent more than fourteen years in prison.

According to a report by the think tank Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN), Karim was accused of leading a cell of the terrorist network Al-Qaeda. Sahir, who was a gatekeeper and translator for Al-Qaeda at the time, is said to have been accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction. In both cases, the evidence was very thin, according to the AAN.

The Guantanamo detention camp was established after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan. Then-President George W. Bush had the prison built to hold suspected terrorists without trial. Nearly 800 people were temporarily imprisoned in Guantanamo. The legal situation of the prisoners, their prison conditions and reports of the interrogation and torture methods used resulted in massive international criticism. (sda/dpa)