U.S. Sends Guantanamo Detainee to Morocco

WASHINGTON—A Moroccan prisoner long held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been returned to his home country as part of an effort by the Biden administration to reduce the prisoner count at the prison, officials said Monday.

Abdul Latif Nasir became the first detainee to be repatriated since President Biden took office, the State Department said. According to a senior administration official, 39 detainees remain at the facility, and 10 have been recommended for transfer by a review board that evaluates detainees.

In 2016, under former President Barack Obama, the review board determined that Mr. Nasir’s detention was no longer necessary for protection against “a continuing significant threat” to U.S. national security.

U.S. officials referred questions about Morocco’s plans for Mr. Nasir to officials in that country. A statement from the public prosecutor in Morocco’s capital said only that an investigation has been ordered into Mr. Nasir’s case.

According to the Pentagon, Mr. Nasir, 56 years old, was a member of a nonviolent but illegal Sufi Islam group in Morocco in the 1980s. In 1996, he was recruited to fight in Chechnya, but ended up in Afghanistan, where he trained at an al Qaeda camp, Pentagon officials said.