'20th Hijacker' Is Returned to Saudi Arabia for Mental Health Care

Also: U.S. sends Saudi detainee accused of link to 9/11 home from Guantanamo (NBC News)

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Source: New York Times

‘20th Hijacker’ Is Returned to Saudi Arabia for Mental Health Care

Mohammed al-Qahtani had spent 20 years at Guantánamo Bay, where he was tortured so badly that he was ineligible to be tried at the war crimes court.

By Carol Rosenberg
March 7, 2022
Updated 5:05 p.m. ET

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — The Biden administration on Monday repatriated to Saudi Arabia for mental health care a prisoner who had been tortured so badly by U.S. interrogators that he was ruled ineligible for trial as the suspected would-be 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The prisoner, Mohammed al-Qahtani, in his 40s, is the second to be transferred from the wartime prison under the administration.

A government panel recommended recently that Mr. Qahtani, who had spent 20 years at Guantánamo Bay, be released after a Navy doctor advised that he was too impaired to pose a future threat — particularly if he was sent to inpatient mental care. The doctor last year upheld an independent psychiatrist’s finding that Mr. Qahtani suffered from schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder, and could not receive adequate care at the U.S. military prison.

His long-serving lawyer, Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the transfer was long overdue.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/us/politics/saudi-arabia-911-hijacker.html

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Source: NBC News and Associated Press

U.S. sends Saudi detainee accused of link to 9/11 home from Guantanamo

Mohammad Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani, 46, who has been held at the U.S. base in Cuba since 2002, will receive treatment at a psychiatric facility.

By Courtney Kube, Mosheh Gains and The Associated Press

A Saudi detainee at Guantanamo Bay who allegedly tried to take part in the 9/11 hijacking plot has been sent back to Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon said on Monday.

Mohammad Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani, 46, who has been held at the U.S. base in Cuba since 2002, will receive treatment at a psychiatric facility. His lawyers maintain that he has displayed symptoms of schizophrenia since a young age, and in 2002 an FBI official saw al-Qahtani speaking to non-existent people, hearing voices and crouching in a corner of his cell while covering himself with a sheet for hours.

A U.S. review board determined in 2021 that his detention “was no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the national security of the United States.”

In February, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin informed Congress that al-Qahtani would be sent home.

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Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-sends-saudi-detainee-linked-911-home-guantanamo-rcna19078