Majid Khan, a 42-year-old Pakistani man, was launched from the U.S. army jail in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Thursday. Pictured right here in 2022, he was despatched to Belize after suing for illegal imprisonment.

Middle for Constitutional Rights

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Middle for Constitutional Rights

Majid Khan, a 42-year-old Pakistani man, was launched from the U.S. army jail in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Thursday. Pictured right here in 2022, he was despatched to Belize after suing for illegal imprisonment.

Middle for Constitutional Rights

Editor’s word: This story contains graphic descriptions of torture strategies.

A 42-year-old Pakistani man who spent practically half his life in U.S. custody — first in a secret CIA jail the place he was tortured, then on the U.S. army jail in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — has been launched after suing the Biden administration for illegal imprisonment. He was resettled within the small Central American nation of Belize.

Majid Khan is the primary “high-value detainee” — a authorities time period for prisoners who have been held on the CIA’s so-called black websites — to be launched from Guantánamo. He’s additionally the primary inmate to be transferred by the Biden administration to a rustic aside from his nation of origin; Khan’s attorneys stated he couldn’t be safely despatched to Pakistan as a result of he had cooperated with U.S. authorities.

“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,” Khan stated in a press release. “The world has modified quite a bit in twenty years, and I’ve modified quite a bit as properly.”

He added: “I’ve been given a second likelihood in life and I intend to take advantage of it…I promise all of you, particularly the individuals of Belize, that I might be a productive, law-abiding member of society.”

Khan was an uncommon Guantánamo prisoner in a number of methods. Though he was born in Saudi Arabia and is a citizen of Pakistan, the place he spent a part of his childhood, he attended highschool in suburban Maryland and speaks fluent English. In his early 20s, after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror assaults, he moved to Pakistan to affix al-Qaida, and was captured by U.S. forces in 2003.

He pleaded responsible to conflict crimes in 2012 — changing into one among simply two males convicted within the historical past of Guantánamo’s army court docket — and accomplished his sentence in March 2022. But he remained there for practically one other yr, prompting his lawsuit.

“In what system do you end your sentence, if you have been sentenced by a court docket of legislation, and stay in jail? The place does that occur?” stated one among Khan’s attorneys, Katya Jestin of the legislation agency Jenner & Block, who has represented him professional bono since 2009. “Actually not in a democracy that’s ruled by a system of legal guidelines.”

In whole, Khan spent greater than three years at a CIA black web site and greater than 16 years at Guantánamo.

Khan’s launch from Guantánamo was delayed whereas the U.S. looked for a rustic to take him. Final summer season, authorities officers stated they have been working “urgently” to switch Khan, but in addition stated they’d been in contact with eleven nations and had but to search out one to simply accept him.

Though Khan has household and a assist system in Maryland, close to Baltimore, a legislation handed by Congress in 2015 prevents Guantánamo detainees from getting into the U.S. for any motive, ostensibly leaving Khan unable to return to the state. His attorneys argue that legislation mustn’t apply to him as a result of he’s a convicted prisoner who has served his time. That subject stays unresolved, “however, in any occasion, he plans to make his life in Belize,” Jestin stated.

Switch offers like Khan’s are delicate: Sophisticated negotiations and the issue of discovering nations prepared to repatriate or resettle Guantánamo prisoners are a big problem, leading to many inmates there who’ve been cleared for launch but stay behind bars. Some have been in that limbo state for greater than a decade.

With Khan’s launch, 34 males stay imprisoned at Guantánamo, out of roughly 780 who’ve handed by way of its jail since 2002. Twenty of these 34 have by no means been criminally charged and have been authorized for launch by a parole-like board, but stay in confinement whereas the U.S. searches for nations to take them. Whereas Khan was charged with against the law and went by way of a court docket course of, the others are thought of “without end prisoners” being held indefinitely with out cost or trial.

Khan has no prior connection to Belize, an English-speaking nation with a inhabitants of about 400,000, and U.S. officers haven’t defined why it agreed to take him. Nations that settle for former Guantánamo prisoners should pledge to deal with them humanely and supply safety assurances.

Belize, the place Khan arrived on Thursday, has emphasised he’s there as a free man on humanitarian grounds, much like a migrant or refugee in search of a second likelihood. Jestin stated Khan is studying Spanish, which can also be generally spoken within the nation. He additionally desires to get a job, and expects his spouse and daughter to affix him, “so I hope he’ll assimilate simply,” she added.

One other legal professional for Khan, Wells Dixon of the Middle for Constitutional Rights, has represented him since his arrival at Guantánamo in 2006. In a press release, he stated he’s “thrilled that Majid is free,” including that “Belize has achieved an excellent job to arrange for his resettlement, and their success serves as a mannequin for different nations.”

Wells Dixon, left, and Katya Jestin, who’ve represented Khan for greater than a decade, communicate with him by cellphone shortly after his launch. Jestin criticized the U.S. operation at Guantánamo, calling it a “Frankenstein court docket with Frankenstein guidelines.”

Matthew Hellman

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Matthew Hellman

Wells Dixon, left, and Katya Jestin, who’ve represented Khan for greater than a decade, communicate with him by cellphone shortly after his launch. Jestin criticized the U.S. operation at Guantánamo, calling it a “Frankenstein court docket with Frankenstein guidelines.”

Matthew Hellman

In its announcement of Khan’s switch, the Protection Division stated: “The US appreciates the willingness of the Authorities of Belize and different companions to assist ongoing U.S. efforts centered on responsibly lowering the detainee inhabitants and in the end closing the Guantánamo Bay facility.”

At Khan’s sentencing, a army jury urged he get leniency after listening to particulars of the abuse he skilled throughout his seize: He was waterboarded, hung from his wrists whereas bare and hooded, and subjected to compelled “rectal feedings” that his attorneys say is equal to anal rape, amongst different abuses.

A army court docket decide, Col. Douglas Ok. Watkins, has referred to as Khan’s remedy “surprising” and stated it “violated the…common proper to be freed from torture underneath U.S. and worldwide legislation.”

Jestin, one among Khan’s attorneys, advised NPR she is elated he is been launched, however had harsh phrases for the U.S. authorities’s operation at Guantánamo.

“I genuinely was skeptical that this might ever occur,” Jestin stated, “as a result of nothing at Guantanamo flows in a predictable method that is predicated on a well-established rule of legislation…It is form of a Frankenstein court docket with Frankenstein guidelines that actually deform what one may consider as a democratic felony justice system.”

Guantánamo’s army court docket and jail have price U.S. taxpayers greater than $6 billion since 2002.

This story was edited by Meg Anderson.