[JURIST] Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi [NYT materials] appeared before a secret government tribunal on Thursday, seeking to be released from his detention. Slahi, who was one of only two Guantanamo prisoners to endure a Rumsfeld approved “special interrogation plan,” sat before the secretive government panel made up of representatives of various government agencies, including the Homeland Security and Justice departments, hoping to be released to another country [Al Jazeera report]. Two anonymous military officers working at Guantanamo described Slahi as “one of the most compliant detainees” and stated that he has begun to “puruse[] a new direction in life.” Despite being ordered to be released by a US district judge in 2010, Slahi has remained [WSJ report] at the Guantanamo facility following a government appeal in federal court. Slahi was arrested in 2001 and moved to Guantanamo in August of the following year on claims that he was a member of al Qaeda in the early 1990s and had helped recruit and assist in their terror operations, including “facilitat[ing] the travel of future 9/11 operational coordinator Ramzi Binalshibh and two future 9/11 hijackers to Chechnya via Afghanistan in 1999.”

There are currently 80 detainees remaining at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. In February US President Barack Obama delivered a plan to Congress to close Guantanamo [JURIST report]. Last month the Department of Defense (DOD) announced the transfer [JURIST report] of nine Yemeni Guantanamo detainees to Saudi Arabia. Earlier in April the DOD announced the transfer [JURIST report] of two Guantanamo detainees to Senegal.