TerrorismBin Laden’s bodyguard released from Guantanamo after 14 years in custody

Abdel Malik Abdel Wahab al-Rahabi, a Yemenite who was one of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards, has been released from Guantanamo after being held for fourteen years in custody without charges filed against him.

The Department of Defense cleared al-Rahabi for release in March 2014, but he release was delayed because of the war in Yemen. Instead of Yemen, al-Rahabi has been sent to Montenegro to be resettled there.

Al-Rahabi is the second former Gitmo inmate to be resettled in Montenegro.

CBS News reports thatal-Rahabi had been held at Guantanamo since it opened in 2002. The Pentagon had said that he had travelled from Yemen to Afghanistan and that he was “almost certainly” a member of al-Qaeda. 

The Pentagon said the decision to release him was taken after it had been determined that he no longer posed a security threat.

Lee Wolosky, the special envoy for Guantanamo closure at the State Department, said the U.S. government was grateful to Montenegro for accepting the former prisoner.

He said: “Montenegro now joins other U.S. friends and allies in Europe in accepting multiple detainees for resettlement, bringing us closer to our shared goal of closing the facility.”