The US has released former Reprieve US client Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu from Guantanamo Bay to Kenya.
Bajabu was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2007 after being arrested in Kenya where he was tortured by Kenyan authorities, reports CNN and Al Jazeera. He was later tortured by US military personnel and held for 17 years without trial.
“The US robbed an innocent man of the best years of his life, separating him from his wife and young children when they most needed him,” Bajabu’s lawyer Frank Panopoulos said in a statement.
“His children, infants when he was tortured, interrogated and shipped to Guantanamo, are now grown. That debt can never be repaid, but the least the US can do is ensure that Abdulmalik receives the support and the space he needs to begin his life anew.”
Reprieve’s deputy executive director Dan Dolan told Kenyan newspaper The Standard, “This transfer is long overdue, so we celebrate it with mixed emotions. We know from our Life After Guantánamo project that the mental scars of torture and indefinite detention can take many years to heal.”
“The very least the US Government can do, having imprisoned Abdulmalik Bajabu without trial for 17 years, is ensure that this is truly an end to his ordeal and the beginning of a new life with his family.”
