Guantanamo Bay: two brothers have returned to Pakistan after twenty years of imprisonment without charge and without trial

ROME – Twenty years of detention without charge, locked up in Guantanamo. The story of Abdul and Ahmed Rabbani, two Pakistani citizens of Rohingya origin, aged 55 and 53 respectively, is a chain of misunderstandings and international embarrassment. The story is told by their lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, who works at the non-governmental organization 3DCentrespecializing in human rights advocacy, based in Dorset, England.

History. Abdul and Ahmed Rabbani were captured in September 2002 by Pakistani security services in the city of Karachi and held by the CIA for 545 days before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2004. While in CIA hands, Ahmed Rabbani was one of the detainee victims of the infamous “enhanced interrogation program”, with which the CIA tortured prisoners to force them to confess. The program included treatments such as waterboarding or sleep deprivation techniques. However, the 2014 US Senate report on torture showed that Ahmed Rabbani was mistaken for Hassan Ghul, an al-Qaeda terrorist.

The misunderstanding. In one of the crucial phases of the so-called “fight against terror”, Ghul was captured by the United States and transferred to the hands of the CIA, but shortly after he was also released because he chose to collaborate, Middle East Eye magazine reports. Once freed Ghul resumed his terrorist activity and was eventually killed in 2012. The two brothers however, although it was now clear that neither of them was Ghul, were transferred to Guantanamo.

The hunger strike. Ahmed remained calm for several years after his arrest, but in 2013 he went on a long protest hunger strike. Attorney Stafford Smith managed to get him some art supplies to distract him, and he became one of Guantanamo’s most celebrated artists. On May 2, 2023 there will be an exhibition dedicated to his works in Karachi. But the most moving and heartbreaking thing together is that Ahmed had never met his son Jawad, who is now twenty years old. His wife was pregnant at the time he was captured and it was only last Friday when he landed in Islamabad that she saw Jawad for the first time. Not much is known about his brother Abdul. Both were cleared for release by the Biden administration in 2021.

The Guantánamo scandal. The US prison camp at Guantánamo Bay was opened more than two decades ago, on January 11, 2002. The US government has held nearly 800 Muslim men and boys there, according to the website of the non-governmental organization Reprieve. Most of the detainees suffered torture and abuse without charge or trial. And even when they have been cleared for release, as was the case for the two Rabbani brothers in 2021, they have been left in a kind of legal limbo. Thirty-two detainees remain in Guantanamo, eighteen of whom are awaiting transfer, if countries are found willing to accept them.