Thread: Guantanamo prisoner refuses to leave after release

Guantanamo prisoner refuses to leave after release - NY ...

Suspected Taliban operative refuses to leave Guantanamo after release, lawyer compares him to 'Shawshank Redemption' character

BY LAURA BULT
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Friday, January 22, 2016, 12:35 PM

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Mohammad Ali Abdullah Bwazir, one of three prisoners who were to be released from Guantánamo this week, was afraid to leave the prison and go to a country where he had no family, his lawyer, John Chandler, said.


A Guantanamo detainee was finally given his freedom after 14 years of captivity — but he refused to leave, prompting his lawyer to compare him to a "Shawshank Redemption" character.

Three Guantanamo prisoners were granted release this week but one, Mohammad Ali Abdullah Bwazir, wouldn’t board a plane early Wednesday morning because he didn’t want to be relocated to a country where he has no family.
“It really bothered me that he didn't take it,” Bwazir's attorney, John Chandler, told the Daily News.

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"I wanted him to go," adding that he was eager to get his client out of the secretive detention center where he was "unjustly" held without a trial or being charged.

Bwazir's lawyer, John Chandler, compared his client to Brooks "Brooksy" Hatlen, the "Shawshank Redemption" character played by James Whitmore who couldn't adjust to life outside of prison.


Chandler said he had spoken to Yemeni-born Bwazir, 35, as his release date approached and that his client expressed fear of being sent to a country where he knew no one.

Bwazir had requested to be sent to countries where had family, including Saudia Arabai, United Arab Emirates and Indonesia.

"Going to a country where he doesn't know a soul is difficult," Chandler said, comparing him to Brooks "Brooksy" Hatlen, the character in "Shawshank Redemption" who committed suicide because he couldn't adjust to life on the outside prison after spending a majority of his life behind bars.

Officials didn’t identify the country where Bwazir was to be sent, but Chandler told the Daily News that “it’s a country that you and I would enjoy having a beer in."

BEN FOX/AP

After two prisoners were successfully transferred to other countries this week, the Guantanamo population is down to 91, the lowest it's ever been.

Bwazir has been in Guantanamo since 2002 after he was captured in northern Afghanistan and sold to the United States for $5,000 after being suspected of working with the Taliban.

He has previously staged hunger strikes in protest of his detention in the secretive jail and alleged torture at the prison.

It's unclear when Bwazir will get another opportunity to leave Guantanamo.

The two other detainees released this week were Yemeni Abdul Aziz Abdullah Ali al Saudi, 41, and Egyptian-born Bosnian Tariq Mahmoud Ahmed al Sawah, 58.

BOB STRONG/REUTERS

Mohammad Ali Abdullah Bwazir 's lawyer said he requested to be sent to a country where he had relatives, but was denied.

Al Sawah will live in Bosnia, where he has dual citizenship while al Saudi — who was alleged to have been an Al Qaeda explosives trainer — will live in Montenegro, according to the Defense Department.

The two successful prisoner transfers brings the Guantanamo population down to 91, the lowest it's ever been.

President Obama has made it a priority to diminish the Guantanamo population after failing to close the prison altogether.

lbult@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...icle-1.2505984

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