Kenyan prisoner held at Guantánamo Bay for 18 years is freed without charges by the US

The United States Pentagon announced the release of three prisoners, including a Kenyan who had been detained at Guantánamo Bay for almost eighteen years due to connections to Al Qaeda-sponsored operations.

Mohammed Abdul Bajabu was released from the wartime prison for the first time in more than a year on Tuesday, December 17, when he was repatriated to Kenya.

After a string of attacks in 2001, Bajabu was one of 780 inmates transferred to Guantánamo Bay during George W. Bush’s administration. He was charged with organizing assaults against Israeli visitors in Kenya.

An intelligence profile connected Bajabu to terrorist activities in Mombasa on November 28, 2002, that targeted Israelis. Thirteen people were killed in the vehicle bomb incident, most of them Kenyans.

After the event, Bajabu was taken into custody by Kenyan police in February 2007 and sent to the United States a few weeks later.

However, the prisoner spent almost 18 years behind bars and was never charged with a crime.

Mark Maher, Bajabu’s attorney at the time, put the inmate in touch with Reprieve, a human rights organization based in London that assists prisoners once they are released from custody.

The US Periodic Review Board granted Maher’s request for Barabu’s transfer.

The attorney pointed out that Bajabu had a wife and kids in Somalia who would move to Kenya to live with him, as well as two sisters who lived in Kenya.