I won’t say the Credentialed Media didn’t cover this, they just did it quietly, in stories that were buried deep in the paper/web editions, that people probably didn’t notice
While Americans were focused on a Chinese spy balloon making its way across the country, the Biden administration quietly released an al Qaeda terrorist radicalized by the September 11 attacks from Guantanamo Bay.
The Pentagon announced on Thursday that Majid Khan, 42, was moved to Belize after spending 16 years in CIA custody.
Authorities have maintained he was a close personal ally of al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who helped deliver money and transport other senior terrorists. And under Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s plans, Khan would have attacked US gas stations and water reservoirs.
Khan, the only United States legal resident being held at Guantanamo, now says he has changed as an individual and promises to be a law-abiding citizen in Belize.
His release comes just one week before a United Nations visits the detention center in Cuba, as United States officials work to free two other al Qaeda terrorists.
Khan, who graduated from a Maryland high school before joining the terrorist organization, started his new life in Belize on Thursday, after completing his 10-year sentence in March 2022.
The Biden admin has apparently been working on this for months, as negotiations started with Belize in September. And what a perfect time to release him, when something big was going on. They didn’t let a Chinese spy balloon cross the entire U.S. in order to create a distraction, did they? In fairness
He pleaded guilty in 2012 to conspiracy to commit murder, spying and ‘providing material support for terrorism.’
Khan was then sentenced to 10 years confinement with ‘credit for the three years he spent cooperating with US personnel.’
That sentence ended March 1, 2022, but authorities had to find a country willing to take him before he could be released. Though he has family in the United States, federal law does not allow Guantanamo Bay detainees to be resettled in the country.
So, he had to be released, but, it was done quietly. Should have sent him to Rehoboth, Delaware. I’m sure they could have found space.
Read: Biden Admin Quietly Releases Al Qaeda Terrorist From Gitmo During Spy Balloon Incident »