Future yoga instructor to suicide bombers. Closing Gitmo one prisoner at a time.
A government parole board Wednesday cleared for eventual release a yoga-practicing prisoner who was brought to Guantánamo as a Taliban foot soldier and wants to leave this prison for a fresh start in a third country rather than his native Yemen.
“Forever prisoner” Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani, 35, told representatives of six U.S. government agencies on April 8 that he had read the biographies of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Dalai Lama at Guantánamo and aspired to live “an ordinary life.”
Bihani has been held without charges since Dec. 30, 2001, when Afghan allies brought him to U.S. forces with wounds from a prisoner-of-war uprising.
His lawyer announced that he had been cleared for release and, although the Pentagon did not immediately announce the board decision, a spokesman agreed.
“I can confirm that Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani, currently held as a law of war detainee, was recently recommended for transfer as soon as practicable, by the inter-agency Periodic Review Board,” said Army Lt. Col. Myles B. Caggins III, a Defense Department spokesman.
The Yemeni’s new designation as eligible for release means that of Guantánamo prison’s 154 captives, 43 are now considered indefinite detainees and 78 could leave once the State Department negotiates transfer deals. The rest include three convicted war criminals and other captives either awaiting trial or considered possible tribunal candidates.