July 19, 2021, New York – In response to news that Abdul Latif Nasser has been transferred out of Guantánamo, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:

We are relieved that Mr. Nasser, who has been detained for 19 years without charge, has finally been transferred out of Guantánamo and sent home to Morocco – the administration must now transfer all of the remaining cleared men, including Center for Constitutional Rights clients Sufyian Barhoumi and Sharqawi al Hajj, without further delay. 

While this transfer is a step in the right direction, the administration has much to do to fulfill President Biden's mandate to close the prison and show greater respect for human rights. In addition to increasing the pace of transfers, the government must purge torture from all detainee-related proceedings, afford detainees due process rights, and, as the U.S. formally withdraws from Afghanistan, finally abandon the already tenuous legal justification for indefinite “preventative” detentions that have been premised on preventing a return to an imagined battlefield. As we approach the 20th anniversary of 9/11, it is long past time to close Guantánamo and reckon with 20 years of injustice and harm.

We wish Mr. Nasser well and hope that he may soon begin the process of rebuilding his life and healing after two decades were stolen from him by the United States government. 

The Center for Constitutional Rights has led the legal battle over Guantánamo for more than 19 years – representing clients in two Supreme Court cases and organizing and coordinating hundreds of pro bono lawyers across the country, ensuring that nearly all the men detained at Guantánamo have had the option of legal representation. Among other Guantánamo cases, the Center represents the families of men who died at Guantánamo, and men who have been released and are seeking justice in international courts.