GUANTANAMO BAY — Two brothers from Pakistan who were held in the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay for nearly 20 years have been released without charge.

Abdul and Mohammed Ahmed Rabbani were arrested in Pakistan in 2002.

The Pentagon said Abdul Rabbani operated an Al-Qaeda safe house, while his brother organized travel and funds for the group’s leaders.

The brothers alleged that they were tortured by CIA officers, before being transferred to Guantanamo. Both have now been repatriated to Pakistan.

The Guantanamo camp, based in Cuba, was established by then-President George W Bush in 2002 to house foreign terrorism suspects following the 9/11 terror attacks in New York. It is based within a US Navy base.

But the camp has come to symbolize some of the excesses of the “war on terror” due to interrogation methods that critics say amount to torture, and detainees being held for long periods without trial.

US President Joe Biden says he hopes to close the facility, where 32 people are still being detained. At its peak in 2003 the facility held 680 prisoners at one time.

“The United States appreciates the willingness of the Government of Pakistan and other partners to support ongoing US efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

The brothers were captured by Pakistan’s security services in the city of Karachi in September 2002. It took almost two years for them to be transferred to Guantanamo after originally being held at a CIA detention facility in Afghanistan.

Both men were approved for release in 2021. it is unclear why they remained imprisoned.

Ahmed Rabbani’s wife was pregnant at the time of his arrest and just five months later she gave birth to their son. He has never met his son.

During his time at Guantanamo, Ahmed Rabbani built a name for himself as an accomplished artist.

Maya Foa, director of justice charity Reprieve, which provided legal representation to Ahmed Rabbani until last year, called his two decades of imprisonment a “tragedy” that “exemplifies how far the USA strayed from its founding principles during the ‘war on terror’ era”.

“They robbed a family of a son, a husband and a father. That injustice can never be rectified. A full reckoning of the harms caused by the disastrous ‘war on terror’ can only begin when Guantánamo is closed for good,” she said. — BBC