US transfers Guantanamo Bay detainee to Kenya

The US has moved a detainee of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay to Kenya, marking the first detainee transfer in more than a year.

The US has moved a detainee of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay to Kenya, marking the first detainee transfer in more than a year. Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu was transferred to Kenya nearly three years after a Periodic Review Board determined the “continued law of war detention … was no longer necessary” in December 2021, a release from the Pentagon said on Tuesday. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin notified Congress about his intent to transfer Bajabu to Kenya in November. He was never charged with a crime. Bajabu had been detained since 2007, Mark Maher, a staff attorney for the human rights group Reprieve US who represented him, told CNN last year. According to Department of Defense filings, Bajabu was a facilitator for al Qaeda in East Africa before he was detained. The last detainee transfer occurred in April 2023, when a 72-year-old al Qaeda associate was transferred to Algeria after more than 20 years of detention at Guantanamo. President Joe Biden made it an early goal of his administration to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, also known as GTMO, but the US made only marginal progress in moving the prisoners held there over the last four years. The facility held about 40 detainees at the start of the Biden administration. According to the Pentagon’s release, 29 detainees remain at the military prison — 15 of whom are eligible to be transferred out. Among those remaining are three alleged 9/11 conspirators whose plea deals are at the center of an ongoing dispute between the Pentagon and the military judge over the validity of said deals.