"Mr. Saif Ullah Paracha, a Pakistani national, who was detained in Guantanamo Bay, has been released and reached Pakistan on Saturday, 29 October, 2022. The Foreign Ministry completed an extensive inter-agency process to facilitate repatriation of Mr. Paracha. We are glad that a Pakistani citizen detained abroad is finally reunited with his family," the ministry said in a statement.
The 75-year-old man was the oldest prisoner at Guananamo Bay and was held for suspected ties with al-Qaeda*, but was never charged with a crime. His release was approved in May 2021 after more than 17 years in custody.
Paracha was captured in Thailand in 2003 and was held at the US base in Cuba since September 2004. Authorities believed he was an al-Qaeda "facilitator" who helped two perpetrators of the September 11 terrorist attack with a financial transaction. However, Paracha denied any involvement in terrorism, claiming he had not known that those people were al-Qaeda members.
His son, Uzair Paracha, was arrested on charges of helping suspected terrorists enter the US with fake IDs before his father's arrest. In 2005, a New York federal court sentenced him to 30 years in prison, but a judge overruled witness testimony in March 2020, and he was sent back to Pakistan in 2021 after the US government decided against a new trial.
* terrorist organization outlawed in Russia and many other states