US resettles Guantanamo Bay detainee Majid Khan in Belize

The US government has resettled a Guantanamo Bay detainee in Belize after the former al-Qaeda courier finished serving his sentence.

Pakistani Majid Khan, 42, was held in the high-security detention facility in Cuba for over 15 years.

Khan was sentenced in 2021 to 10 years, with credit for the years he spent cooperating with US personnel.

His resettlement marks the first time US President Joe Biden’s administration has transferred a detainee.

The US government is aiming to “responsibly reduc[e] the detainee population” at Guantanamo Bay and ultimately close the facility, the US Department of Defense said in a statement on Thursday announcing Khan’s transfer.

“I have been given a second chance in life and I intend to make the most of it,” Khan said in a statement.

“I deeply regret the things that I did many years ago, and I have taken responsibility and tried to make up for them.

“The world has changed a lot in twenty years, and I have changed a lot as well.”

Khan was one of the better known prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay facility – a US military prison that once housed hundreds of suspected militants captured following the 9/11 attacks.

That was in part due to his testimony about being tortured while held in secret in CIA custody overseas from 2003, following his capture in Pakistan, to 2006.

In a testimony during a hearing at the Guantanamo Bay facility in 2021, Khan alleged he was subjected to beatings and waterboarding and was stripped nude and forced to undergo procedures including enemas during his time at the overseas CIA site.

“The more I cooperated, the more I was tortured”, he said, adding that he made up lies in order to appease interrogators.

His testimony echoed findings from a 2014 report from the US Senate on the CIA’s interrogation programme, which found the agency used ineffective and brutal methods of torture to obtain intelligence.

Khan went to high school in the US state of Maryland before he left for his native country and joined Al Qaeda following 9/11.

He pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges in 2012.

Khan – one of few Guantanamo detainees to be resettled to a country in the Western Hemisphere – said he had been a “young, impressionable, vulnerable kid” when he was recruited to al-Qaeda and has since said he rejected the organisation and terrorism.

Khan departed the Cuba facility on Thursday, Biden Administration officials told NBC News.

The officials said the US government was preparing to transfer at least two more prisoners in the coming weeks. Federal law prohibits Guantanamo detainees from being resettled in the US.

The US said 34 detainees are still imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, including 20 who are eligible for transfer, three who are eligible for a review of whether they should be released and two who have been convicted in military commissions.