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The vigils demand the immediate release of 16 prisoners already “cleared for release,” some for many years. Most of them are from Yemen. Journalist Andy Worthington is profiling the current prisoners.
…Hani Saleh Rashid Abdullah, also identified by the U.S. authorities as Said Salih Said Nashir, a 48- or 49-year old Yemeni citizen, who, as of February 11, 2024, had been held for 1,200 days since the U.S. authorities decided that they no longer wanted to hold him.
Hani arrived at Guantánamo on October 28, 2002. The photo is from his classified military file, released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and dating from June 2008, meaning that he would have been 33 or 34 years old, or younger, when it was taken.
Since his arrival at Guantánamo — 7,777 days ago (that’s 21 years and 107 days) — Hani has been held without charge or trial, and with no sign of when, if ever, he will eventually be freed, even though the high-level government review process that approved him for release concluded unanimously, on October 29, 2020, that “continued law of war detention is no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States…”