Salim Ahmed Hamdan Khan, a Pakistani national, is apparently getting a second chance in life. After being held as a detainee in Guantanamo for several years and enduring the harrowing ordeal of alleged torture techniques such as sleep deprivation, ice water baths, and forced rectal feeding at a CIA black site prior to his transfer to Gitmo, he was recently granted resettlement in Belize.
Khan’s journey began back in 1998 when he found asylum in the United States while attending high school near Baltimore. He then decided to return to Pakistan four years later in 2002, which according to some reports was around the same time that he became a direct subordinate of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). KSM is widely recognized as Al-Qaeda’s senior operational planner and mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks on America. It is believed that Khan had been tasked by KSM with activities such as transferring money and transporting another senior figure of Al-Qaeda to carry out the 2003 Marriott Hotel terrorist attack in Jakarta.
Two years after his return from the US, Khan was arrested by Pakistani police in Karachi under suspicion of terrorism based on intelligence reports linking him with KSM’s activities. He was then taken into CIA custody until his eventual transfer to Guantanamo Bay where he became one of fourteen “high value detainees” established by former President George W. Bush. Dianne Feinstein – then chairwoman, now a senator for California – has since gone onto assert that Khan had indeed been subject to torture by the CIA during his imprisonment at the black site; an accusation which the agency has vehemently denied despite mounting evidence provided by Feinstein’s Senate Intelligence Committee report on their so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ used on prisoners like Khan.
Fortunately for Salim Ahmed Hamdan Khan though, his story doesn’t end there – because after more than fifteen years since first finding refuge in America as an asylum seeker and two years spent detained at Gitmo accused of carrying out terrorist acts overseas at KSM’s behest – he has been given yet another chance at life with the offer of resettlement from Belize following his release from Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
In 2012, Khan pled guilty to terrorism-related charges and was sentenced to ten years’ detention which ended on March 1st, 2022, however, federal law does not allow Guantanamo detainees to be resettled within the United States itself.
As such, it took strong negotiations between Secretary of State Antony Blinken (who was reported as having played a key role himself) and Belizean Prime Minister John Briceño for an agreement finally to be reached regarding safe resettlement for Khan outside of U.S territory, an agreement which marked both the first detainee release from Guantánamo under the Biden regime as well as the first third-country resettlement under this same administration.
Khan issued a statement expressing his deep gratitude towards Belize alongside contrition for his actions in past years: “I have been given a second chance in life and intend to make the most of it,” he said. “I deeply regret the things that I did many years ago, and I have taken responsibility and tried to make up for them. I continue to ask for forgiveness from God and those I have hurt. I am truly sorry. The world has changed a lot in 20 years, and I have changed a lot as well. I promise all of you, especially the people of Belize, that I will be a productive, law-abiding member of society. Thank you for believing in me, and I will not let you down. My actions will speak louder than my words.”
He further promised that he would prove himself worthy of this chance by becoming a productive member of society through his actions rather than words alone, but not just Belize but also around twelve other countries were contacted by Biden’s team during their search for Khan’s new home, according to two U.S sources who spoke with NBC News about the matter.