Guantánamo Bay detainee is transferred to Moroccan government

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A Moroccan man, who has been held as a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay from 2002 and never charged with a crime, has been transferred over to Morocco with security assurances from Rabat, a report said. 

The New York Times reported that Abdul Latif Nasser’s transfer brought the total prisoner population at the base to 39. The paper pointed out that the U.S. once held 675 prisoners there.

The paper reported that U.S. forces delivered the 56-year-old to the Moroccan government on Monday. His family hopes to get him work for his brother’s swimming pool cleaning business, the report said.

"In 2016, the Periodic Review Board (PRB) process determined that law of war detention of Abdul Latif Nasir no longer remained necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the national security of the United States. Therefore, the PRB recommended that Nasir be authorized for repatriation to his native country of Morocco, subject to security and humane treatment assurances," a Defense Department statement obtained by Fox News, said.

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Last February, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said it was the "intention" of the Biden administration to close the detention facility, something President Barack Obama pledged to do within a year shortly after he took office in January 2009.

The Associated Press contributed to this report