US releases Guantanamo prisoner, resettles him in Cape Verde

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MIAMI – A prisoner from Yemen at the Guantanamo Bay detention center has been released and sent to the West African nation of Cape Verde for resettlement.

The Pentagon says the release announced Sunday of Shawqi Awad Balzuhair lowers the number of prisoners held at the U.S. base in Cuba to 59. Twenty of those remaining have been approved for release.

Balzuhair has been held at Guantanamo without charge since October 2002 following his capture along with several other suspected Al Qaeda militants in Karachi, Pakistan. A U.S. government review board determined he was a "low-level militant" and approved his release in 2016.

The U.S. does not send prisoners back to Yemen because of the civil war and had to find another country to accept him. Cape Verde accepted another prisoner in 2010.