Guantanamo Bay frees mistaken Karachi taxi driver after 17 years
A man called Ahmad Rabbani, who once worked as a taxi driver in Karachi, has been released from Guantanamo Bay after 17 years after being cleared of all charges.
Ahmad Rabbani’s release was announced late Friday night by Reprieve, a legal action NGO, that works on such cases.
PRESS RELEASE: Ahmed Rabbani has been unanimously cleared for release from Guantánamo by six US Government agencies.
He has been locked up without charge or trial by the US for 19 years, the last 17 of them at #Guantanamo 👇🏾 https://t.co/EUWCZsHqRJ
— Reprieve (@Reprieve) October 22, 2021
According to Reprieve, Rabbani’s case was of a mistaken identity. He was identified in 2002 as a wanted man called Hassan Ghul and sold to US personnel in Pakistan. “Although they soon realised they had the wrong man, they took him to Afghanistan and tortured him in black sites for 545 days,” said the Reprieve press release. “The abuse he was subjected to is documented in the US Senate torture report.”
According to the New York Times coverage of the case, Rabbani and his brother were captured in a raid in Karachi in September 2002. They were detained for about 550 days in the custody of the Central Intelligence Agency and transferred to Guantánamo Bay in 2004. “The Guantánamo Review Task Force (2009-10) had recommended he be considered for prosecution, but the case was not pursued,” the newspaper reported.
Article source: https://www.samaa.tv/news/2021/10/guantanamo-bay-frees-mistaken-karachi-taxi-driver-after-17-years/