Reuters/Washington

The United States said yesterday it had transferred Abdul Shalabi, a longtime hunger striker at the Guantanamo Bay prison and described as a bodyguard for former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, to his home country of Saudi Arabia.
His departure after more than 13-1/2 years at the Guantanamo facility leaves 114 detainees at the US naval base in Cuba, the Pentagon said in a statement.
The US Defence Department has described the 39-year-old Shalabi as a member of Al Qaeda and a longtime bodyguard for bin Laden, who received “specialised close combat training for his role as a suicide operative in an aborted component” of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Shalabi was transferred “to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”, the Pentagon said, marking the second detainee departure from Guantanamo in less than a week. The Pentagon last Thursday said Younis Abdurrahman Chekkouri, a Moroccan detainee held since 2002, had been returned to his home country.
“The United States is grateful to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility,” the Pentagon said.
It said the United States co-ordinated with Saudi Arabia “to ensure this transfer took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures”.
In April, Shalabi’s representatives urged the United States to transfer him to Saudi Arabia “as soon as possible” and that he “should not be considered a significant and continuing threat to the security of the United States”. They said he had been on a hunger strike since 2005.
They told a review board considering his case that hunger striking “is not an illegal act, but rather a non-violent and peaceful means of protesting camp conditions and continued detainment”.