The Defense Department transferred three Guantanamo Bay detainees to their home countries this week, leaving the number of detainees at the infamous prison below 30.
Mohammed Farik bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir bin Lep, both of whom were convicted in connection with the 2002 Bali bombings, a series of terrorist attacks on that day that left more than 200 people dead, have been repatriated back to the Malaysian government after pleading guilty to all the charges against them and agreed to testify against the alleged ringleader of that and other attacks. They worked closely for years with Encep Nurjaman, known as Hambali, an Indonesian leader of the al-Qaida affiliate Jemaah Islamiya, who is also detained at Guantanamo Bay.
The United States also repatriated Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu, an alleged al-Qaida facilitator, to the Kenyan government.
The Pentagon notified Congress last month that these transfers would occur. With their repatriations, the number of detainees still held at Guantanamo Bay is 27, 15 of whom are eligible to be transferred to another country.
President Joe Biden made it an early goal of his administration to close the facility, as did former President Barack Obama during his two terms, but he will fail to deliver on that promise. President-elect Donald Trump, for his part, signed an executive order in January 2018 to keep the facility open, reversing Obama’s policy.
Prior to Trump’s return to the White House, the most notorious case involving Guantanamo detainees will take its latest twist and turn.
Some of the 9/11 terrorists are still being held more than decades after their involvement in the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Their cases have spun out for several years of court delays.
Over the summer, the Pentagon reached a plea agreement with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks, and plotters Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi. The agreement, which was quickly criticized, would allow the two to avoid the death penalty in exchange for pleading guilty with life sentences.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin abruptly intervened in the case and revoked the plea deals, arguing that he should have the final decision. He also took responsibility from the convening authority for military commissions, which runs the military courts at Guantanamo Bay.
Judge Col. Matthew McCall revoked the plea deals and set a hearing date for them to enter their pleas for Jan. 6, 2025, but the U.S. government has appealed his decision.
The cases have taken several twists over the years as the prosecutors have sought to navigate the difficulties of obtaining information via torture and whether it should be admissible in court. There is a law in place that prevents the U.S. from bringing them into the United States for any reason, so they may be imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay until their deaths.
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In 2021, Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News personality who Trump nominated for defense secretary, said Guantanamo Bay “was the right idea” after 9/11 but that it “warped into something it wasn’t. It turned into a daycare facility for terrorists. That’s certainly what it is today. They are never getting tried. They have all these rights that they shouldn’t have.”
Hegseth, who deployed to the prison with the New Jersey National Guard between May 2004 and May 2005, added, “They’re laughing at us,” and the “only kind of injection KSM should have gotten is a lethal injection based on what he did to the American people.”