A Kenyan man is among five men set to be released from prison under the orders of United States President Joe Biden.
According to latest decisions released by the Pentagon on Tuesday, January 11, a US government review approved the release of the five men who have been held at Guantánamo Bay prison without charges.
Kenyan national, Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu is among three Yemenis transferred from military detention charged with war crimes and detained as 'Law of War' detainees, the American term for prisoners of war on terrorism.
Bajabu was arrested in Kenya in 2007 and turned over to U.S. authorities considering him a facilitator for Al Qaeda’s East Africa affiliate.
However, the review board concluded on December 27, 2021 that his release was justified because he was a low-level extremist trainee before his capture.
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The other three are Moath al-Alwi, Zuhail al-Sharabi and Omar al-Rammah.
The government review also approved the transfer, with security measures, of 47-year-old Somalia national identified as Guled Hassan Duran.
"Our longest war has ended, yet Guantánamo endures. If these detainees had been white and not brown or Black, is there any realistic chance the United States would imprison them without charge for decades? I don’t think so," Lee Wolosky, a former special envoy for the closure of Guantánamo noted.
The release marked the latest step towards reducing detainees population at Guantanamo and closing the facility which has posed political, legal and ethical challenges to US presidents.
Biden had pledged to shut down the prison.
However, to make this a reality, his administration must negotiate transfer agreements with the governments of origin of the detainees or with third countries.
