Saifullah Abdullah Paracha is a citizen of

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

who was held, without any charge, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Guantanamo Bay detainment camp The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Guant ...

s, in

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

for over 18 years. He was released on October 29, 2022. As of 18 May 2021, Saifullah Paracha was approved for release by American authorities after his son Uzair Paracha's conviction was overturned in 2018 and the younger Paracha was repatriated to Pakistan in March 2020. On 29 October 2022,

's Foreign Office Spokesperson Asim Iftikhar stated that Saifullah Paracha has been released from Guantanamo prison and has returned to Pakistan.

Early life

The

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

reports that Paracha was born on August 17, 1947 in

Mangwal Mangwal is a village and union council, an administrative subdivision, of Chakwal District in the Punjab Province of Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South As ...

, Pakistan. He graduated from a university in Karachi with a degree in physics and attended New York Institute of Technology, studying computer systems analysis. At the time of his capture, Paracha legally resided in the United States, in

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

, New York City. He managed various businesses such as travel agencies, real estate, and a media company. He obtained his

green card A green card, known officially as a permanent resident card, is an identity document which shows that a person has permanent residency in the United States. ("The term 'lawfully admitted for permanent residence' means the status of having been ...

in 1980.

Arrest

Officials pretending to be

Kmart Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was inc ...

representatives told him they need to meet him in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...

, Thailand, to discuss a deal. He was captured by FBI agents in July 2003. He was accused of meeting

Osama Bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

and helping 'facilitate financial transactions and propaganda' for the

9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

orchestrators. He also allegedly met with bin Laden during a delegation of Pakistani dignitaries. He was then taken to

Bagram Airbase Bagram Airfield-BAF, also known as Bagram Air Base , is located southeast of Charikar in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan. It is under the Afghan Ministry of Defense. Sitting on the site of the ancient Bagram at an elevation of above sea leve ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

where he was initially held. A little over a year into his imprisonment, he suffered a heart attack and was moved to Guantanamo Bay. He underwent heart surgery in 2006 at the hospital in Guantanamo Bay.

Combatant Status Review

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Saifullah Paracha's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on October 6, 2004.documents (.pdf)
from Saifullah Paracha's

Combatant Status Review Tribunal The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were esta ...

– - mirror pages 1-19/ref>

Saifullah Paracha v. George W. Bush

writ of habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

, Saifullah Paracha v. George W. Bush, was submitted on Saifullah Paracha's behalf. In response, on December 21, 2004, the Department of Defense published fifty-eight pages of unclassified documents related to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. On December 8, 2004,

Tribunal panel 24 A tribunal, generally, is any person or institution with authority to judge, adjudicate on, or determine claims or disputes—whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title. For example, an advocate who appears before a court with a single ...

convened and confirmed Saifullah Paracha's "enemy combatant" status.

Press reports

On July 12, 2006, the magazine ''

Mother Jones Mary G. Harris Jones (1837 (baptized) – November 30, 1930), known as Mother Jones from 1897 onwards, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She h ...

'' provided excerpts from the transcripts of a selection of the Guantanamo detainees."Why Am I in Cuba?"
, ''

Mother Jones (magazine) ''Mother Jones'' (abbreviated ''MoJo'') is an American progressive magazine that focuses on news, commentary, and investigative journalism on topics including politics, environment, human rights, health and culture. Clara Jeffery serves as edi ...

'', July 12, 2006 Paracha was one of the detainees profiled. According to the article his transcript contained the following exchange: On June 2, 2008

Zachary Katznelson Zachary Philip Katznelson is a lawyer and formerly Legal Director for the human rights group Reprieve. Katznelson and his colleagues represented over 50 people imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. He has written numerous newspaper op-eds and was freq ...

appealed to the Pakistani government for assistance, stating:

Joint Review Task Force

On January 21, 2009, the day he was inaugurated,

United States President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United State ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

issued three

Executive orders ''Executive Orders'' is a techno-thriller novel, written by Tom Clancy and released on July 1, 1996. It picks up immediately where the final events of ''Debt of Honor'' (1994) left off, and features now-U.S. President Jack Ryan as he tries to d ...

related to the detention of individuals in Guantanamo. That new review system was composed of officials from six departments, where the OARDEC reviews were conducted entirely by the Department of Defense. When it reported back, a year later, the

Joint Review Task Force The Guantanamo Review Task Force was created by Executive Order 13492 issued by President of the United States Barack Obama on January 22, 2009, his second full day in office. United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced Matthew G. Olsen a ...

classified some individuals as too dangerous to be transferred from Guantanamo, even though there was no evidence to justify laying charges against them. On April 9, 2013, that document was made public after a

Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...

request. Saifullah Paracha was one of the 71 individuals deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release. Obama said those deemed too innocent to charge, but too dangerous to release would start to receive reviews from a

Periodic Review Board The Periodic Review Boards administrate a US ''"administrative procedure"'' for recommending whether certain individuals held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba are safe to release or transfer, or whether they should continue to be held ...

Periodic Review Board

The first review wasn't convened until November 20, 2013. Paracha was approved for transfer on May 13, 2021.

Paracha's son

Paracha's son, Uzair Paracha, was convicted in 2005 for providing support to

Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremism, Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arab, Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military ta ...

, that included assistance for Majid Khan to obtain documents. On July 3, 2018, 15 years after his arrest, Uzair's conviction was deemed void by Judge Sidney H. Stein based on newly discovered statements made by Ammar Al Baluchi, Majid Khan and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Stein, who oversaw Paracha's trial and imposed his sentence, called it a "manifest injustice" to let the conviction stand and granted Paracha's request, made in November 2008, for a new trial. Uzair was freed on the 13th of March, 2020 and willingly repatriated to Pakistan, giving up his resident status.

References

External links

Secret US cables accessed by Dawn through WikiLeaks: Saifullah Paracha's continued detention at Gitmo a mystery

Saifullah Paracha
Reprieve
UN Secret Detention Report (Part Two): CIA Prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq
Andy Worthington, June 16, 2010
The Paracha Family: From 1947 till now
a support site {{DEFAULTSORT:Paracha, Saifullah 1947 births Living people Detainees of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp Pakistani extrajudicial prisoners of the United States Bagram Theater Internment Facility detainees People subject to extraordinary rendition by the United States University of Karachi alumni New York Institute of Technology alumni