Bin Laden bodyguard transferred from Gitmo to Saudi

His release, the second this month, brings the prisoner population at Guantanamo to 114, including 52 who have been approved for transfer.

In a statement explaining its reasoning, the board said Mr. Shalabi had “terrorist-related activities and connections” in the past, but said it was confident that the Saudi government’s rehabilitation program and its ability to monitor former detainees would mitigate the risks.

Prior to his release, Shalabi was on a nine-year hunger strike in protest of his detention.

His attorney, Julia Tarver Mason-Wood, told the review board in April that Shalabi was willing to take part in the Saudi rehabilitation program and hoped later to finish his university degree and work in his brothers’ construction or real estate businesses.

WASHINGTON-The Obama administration announced Tuesday it has transferred a Saudi Arabian national from the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay back to his native Saudi Arabia.

The USA defence department also said that he received specialised combat training for his role as a suicide operative in an aborted component of 9/11 attacks on the US.

A multi-agency review of Shalabi’s case in June found that the continued “detention of Shalabi does not remain necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States”, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.

On December 15, 2001, Pakistani authorities captured Shalabi along with 31 other al-Qaida fighters, who were fleeing from Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden’s mountain complex.

The Obama administration has been working to close the detention center before the president leaves office, a promise he made during his first campaign.