ISLAMABAD: The United States has repatriated to Pakistan a Karachi man who was held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for nearly two decades without charge, the Foreign Office said.
Foreign Ministry said it completed an “extensive inter-agency process to facilitate” the release of Saifullah Paracha, the last Pakistani held at the notorious detention camp. “We are glad that a Pakistani citizen detained abroad is finally reunited with his family,” a press release, which referred to Paracha by his last name, said late on Friday.
Suspected of having contacts with al-Qaeda, Paracha, now 75 and the oldest prisoner at the centre until his release, was detained in Bangkok in July 2003 and taken to Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan, before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2004.
According to a Guardian report, at the time of his arrest, he was heading to the Thailand capital to join his American business partner for a meeting with buyers for Kmart, an Australian chain of department stores.
His wife accompanied him to the airport in Karachi. The Parachas — Saifullah, Farhat and their four children — lived in the upscale neighbourhood of Defence.
He was never charged with a crime. Paracha has never had a chance to see the full extent of what he has been accused of, let alone properly defend himself in court.
“There are no charges against him at this time,” a defense department spokesperson told the Guardian in 2018 when asked about charges against Paracha. “I cannot speculate about the future.”
In 2008, Zachary Katznelson, his counsel, told Reuters Paracha, who is suffering from heart disease, “is kept in a steel-made cell for 22 hours. Only two hours he is taken outside in a bigger cage.”
