ISLAMABAD    -   Saif Ullah Paracha, a Pakistani national, who had been detained in Guantanamo Bay, arrived home on Saturday after his release, the Foreign Office Spokesperson said.

Saifullah Paracha, 75, was arrested two years after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US for allegedly being sympathiser of an al-Qaeda.

Paracha was suspected of financing the jihadist group, but was never charged by the court of law.

The US military prison in Cuba once housed hundreds of suspected militants captured from Afghanistan and elsewhere by US authorities through intelligence cooperation with the various countries. “We are glad that a Pakistani citizen detained abroad is finally reunited with his family,” a spokesman of Foreign Office Asim Iftikhar said in an official statement.

Paracha was captured in July 2003 in Thailand following a sting operation by the American FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigations] in which he was trapped and shifted to Afghanistan.

After 14 months at a US military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, he was transferred to Guantanamo. Paracha was accused by US authorities of having contact with some of the group’s most senior figures, including its leader Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Paraacha’s release comes at a time when US President Joe Biden is under pressure to clear out uncharged prisoners and move ahead with the trials of those accused of having direct ties to al-Qaeda. The US administration had approved Paracha’s release last year, along with that of another Pakistani national, 55-year-old Abdul Rabbani, and Yemen native Uthman Abdul al-Rahim Uthman, 41, however, it took a long time to release him.