Gitmo prisoner on 9-year hunger strike set to be released

[IceWizard]

June 27, 2015

Http://foxnews.com/world/2015/06/27/gitm...-released/

MIAMI – A prisoner who has been on a
nine-year hunger strike to protest his
confinement at the U.S. base at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, can now return to
his native Saudi Arabia, a government
review board said Friday.

The Periodic Review Board, which has
been re-evaluating dozens of Guantanamo
prisoners previously deemed too dangerous
to release, said in a statement published on
its website that Abdul Rahman Shalabi can
be released to take part in a Saudi government rehabilitation program for
militants and would be subject to monitoring
afterward.

Shalabi, 39, was among the first prisoners
taken to Guantanamo in January 2002. He
was never charged with a crime but the
government said he had been a bodyguard
for Osama bin Laden and had links to the
external operations chief for al-Qaida, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is facing trial by military commission at Guantanamo.

The board, which was created by the
administration of President Barack Obama
in 2011 as part of the effort to close the
prison at Guantanamo, did not clear Shalabi
of wrongdoing and said it "acknowledges
the detainee's past terrorist-related activities." Shalabi began a hunger strike in 2005.

He and another prisoner, who since has been
released, maintained the protest longer than any others held at the base. Court records show Shalabi occasionally consumed food but also dropped to as little as 101 pounds.

His lawyer told the review board in April that prison officials had fed him with a nasogastric tube daily for nine years.

The U.S. now holds 116 men at Guantanamo, including 52 cleared for transfer or release.