First Gitmo Transfer Under Biden: Center for Constitutional Rights Gitmo Lawyers Respond

In response to news that Abdul Latif Nasser has been transferred out of Guantanamo, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:

We are relieved that Mr. Nasser, who has been detained for 19 years without charge, has finally been transferred out of Guantanamo and sent home to Morocco--the administration must now transfer all of the remaining cleared men, including Center for Constitutional Rights clients Sufyian Barhoumi and Sharqawi al Hajj, without further delay.

While this transfer is a step in the right direction, the administration has much to do to fulfill President Biden's mandate to close the prison and show greater respect for human rights. In addition to increasing the pace of transfers, the government must purge torture from all detainee-related proceedings, afford detainees due process rights, and, as the U.S. formally withdraws from Afghanistan, finally abandon the already tenuous legal justification for indefinite "preventative" detentions that have been premised on preventing a return to an imagined battlefield. As we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, it is long past the time to close Guantanamo and reckon with 20 years of injustice and harm.

We wish Mr. Nasser well and hope that he may soon begin the process of rebuilding his life and healing after two decades were stolen from him by the United States government.