Pakistani brothers released from Guantanamo and sent home

WASHINGTON — Two Pakistani brothers, Abdul and Mohammed Rabbani, have been freed from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay and repatriated after serving more than 20 years, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

Abdul Rabbani, who was born in 1967, is believed to be one of the oldest inmates at the facility at a US base in Cuba.

U.S. officials have accused him of acting for self-confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) worked and ran an al-Qaeda safehouse in Karachi, but his investigation as a detainee suggests he had no “specific insight into al-Qaeda’s operational plans.”

Mohammed Rabbani, born in 1969, was accused of having recruited his older brother into extremist circles. He is believed to have organized travel and funds for KSM and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, masterminds of the October 2000 suicide bombing of the missile destroyer USS Cole, which killed 17 US sailors.

The couple were arrested by Pakistani authorities in Karachi in September 2002, according to a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which also names Mohammed Rabbani as one of 17 detainees who were tortured in foreign CIA black sites.

Both men arrived at Guantanamo Bay in 2004 and were released in 2021, the Defense Department said in a statement.

Their release brings the number of detainees remaining at Guantánamo Bay to 32. Of those, 18 are eligible for transfer, three are subject to review, nine are on trial before US military commissions, and two have been convicted.