The Pentagon announced on Thursday that two Pakistani brothers, Mohammed Ahmed Ghulam Rabbani, 53, and Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani, 55, were released and repatriated from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay after more than 20 years in detention.

The Ghulam brothers, who were never charged with any crimes during 20 years in US custody, were flown to Pakistan in an arrangement with Pakistani authorities.

Abdul Rahim Rabbani, who was born in 1967, is thought to be one of the oldest inmates at the facility, which is located on a US occupation base in Cuba.

US officials accused him of working for avowed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and running an Al-Qaeda safe house in Karachi, but according to his detainee assessment, he did not have "specific insight into Al-Qaeda operational plans."

Mohammed Ahmed Rabbani, born in 1969, was falsely accused of enlisting the help of his older brother in extremist circles. He is suspected of arranging travel and funding for KSM and Abd Al-Rahim Al-Nashiri, the mastermind of the October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole missile destroyer, which killed 17 US sailors.

According to a Senate intelligence committee report, the pair was arrested in Karachi in September 2002 by Pakistani authorities, and Mohammed Ahmed Rabbani was one of 17 detainees tortured at overseas CIA secret prisons known as black sites.

Both men arrived at Guantanamo Bay in 2004 after being kept at a CIA-run detention site in Afghanistan for about 550 days with no charges made. Although they were approved for release in 2021, according to a statement from the Defense Department, it is unclear why they remained in prison till now.

Their release brings the total number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to 32. There are 18 eligible for transfer, three eligible for review, nine on trial in US military commissions, and two convicted.

Oldest detainee released

Last year in October, the oldest detainee in the notorious US-run Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba was released to his home country, Pakistan, on October 29, as revealed by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry and the Pentagon. 

The detention facility that has occupied Cuban land till this day has hosted hundreds of men with untried allegations of terrorism during the so-called "war on terror" waged by the United States in West Asia in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in New York 21 years ago.

Saif Ullah Paracha, who is now 76, is a businessman who was detained in 2003 while he was in Thailand. He was accused of financing Al-Qaeda. However, Paracha has maintained his innocence and even claimed love for the United States, having been a student there. 

Paracha was never formally charged and had little legal power to challenge his detention.

US repatriates Afghan unlawfully held for 15 years

Last year in June, the US government complied with a federal court order to release a former militia member from Afghanistan, who grew up in a refugee camp in Pakistan, after 15 years of unjust imprisonment without him being charged with any war crimes.

Haroon Gul, who is in his 40s, was held for 15 years in Guantanamo Bay, following multiple efforts of mediation by Qatar to secure his release. Haroon was captured in 2007. The Hezb-i-Islami militia, which he was part of, made peace with the Afghan government in 2016, and the Ghani government filed a petition in a US court seeking his return.