Freed Guantánamo Bay Detainee Is Reunited With Family

Politics|A freed Guantánamo Bay detainee is reunited with his household successful Morocco.

• July 20, 2021, 1:16 p.m. ET

The erstwhile Guantánamo detainee Abdul Latif Nasser was reunited with his household successful Casablanca aft U.S. troops turned him implicit to Moroccan authorities custody, his lawyers said Tuesday.

U.S. troops airlifted Mr. Nasser, 56, from Guantánamo Bay connected Sunday successful the archetypal merchandise of a detainee from the situation by the Biden administration. American and Moroccan officials had agreed to information arrangements for his instrumentality successful the past days of the Obama administration, but the woody was enactment connected clasp erstwhile President Donald J. Trump halted each transfers upon taking office.

“He is ecstatic,” said Bernard E. Harcourt, a New York-based lawyer and instrumentality professor, who represented Mr. Nasser successful national court. He and his co-counsel, Thomas Anthony Durkin, spoke to Mr. Nasser by telephone astatine his household location successful Casablanca, and declared the erstwhile captive of much than 19 years successful bully spirits. He was peculiarly buoyed by being reunited with extended household members who had gathered for Eid al-Adha, the Muslim beatified time known arsenic the Feast of Sacrifice, Mr. Harcourt added.

“He did accidental it was astonishing for him to spell location erstwhile each his household was there,” Mr. Harcourt said.

Mr. Nasser’s ineligible presumption successful his location state was unclear. He was held for a clip Monday successful a jailhouse adjacent Casablanca, and Moroccan justness officials said successful a connection that the constabulary were investigating him for alleged engagement successful terrorism.

The probe was not unusual. Previous Moroccan citizens who were repatriated from Guantánamo were held for days, if not months, and immoderate were charged with terror-related offenses.

The London-based ineligible and quality rights advocacy steadfast Reprieve said successful a connection that Mr. Nasser would not beryllium doing interviews with quality organizations “for the foreseeable future.” It quoted him successful the connection arsenic declaring that, though helium was calved connected March 4, helium considered himself “born again connected July 19,” the time of his merchandise from U.S. subject detention.