This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A prisoner from Yemen at the Guantánamo Bay detention center has been released and sent to the West African country of Cape Verde for resettlement.

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The Pentagon said the release of Shawqi Awad Balzuhair, announced on Sunday, lowered the number of prisoners held at the US base in Cuba to 59. Twenty of those remaining have been approved for release.

The Obama administration’s stated aim to close Guantánamo looks sure to fail, as Barack Obama’s presidency comes to an end.

The incoming Trump administration is set to include opponents of closing the base, including President-elect Donald Trump and his nominee for CIA director, the Kansas congressman Mike Pompeo.

Balzuhair had been held at Guantánamo without charge since October 2002, following his capture along with several other suspected al-Qaida militants in Karachi, Pakistan.

A US government review board determined he was a “low-level militant” and approved his release in 2016.

The US does not send prisoners back to Yemen because of the civil war there, and therefore had to find another country to accept Balzuhair. Cape Verde accepted another prisoner in 2010.