Guantanamo prisoner Majid Khan is freed

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A longtime Guantánamo Bay detainee, who was interrogated at CIA black sites and imprisoned more than 15 years at the top-security facility in Cuba, was released in Belize on Thursday, the man’s attorneys said.

The resettlement of Majid Khan, who entered into a cooperation agreement with the government in 2012, represented the first time a so-called “high-value” prisoner who was brought to Guantánamo from the secret CIA facilities was released, attorneys at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Jenner & Block said in a statement.

Khan, a Pakistani citizen, was born in Saudi Arabia but grew up outside of Baltimore. In 2003 he was captured in Pakistan and taken to a number of secret CIA facilities, where he was subject to harsh interrogation tactics. After pleading guilty in 2012, he completed a 10-year sentence in March 2022.

“I have been given a second chance in life and I intend to make the most of it,” Khan said in a statement released via his attorneys. Before his release, he described coming under the influence of al-Qaeda in Pakistan and taking part in militant plots.

In a statement, the Defense Department thanked the government of Belize.

Thirty-four inmates remain at Guantánamo, where efforts to prosecute suspects from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and other terror incidents have repeatedly stalled in a military court.

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